Deviance/The criminal question/Security

In this chapter, the author explores, through the key of legal feminism, three interconnected categories of criminal law and sociology of deviance: deviance, the criminal question, and security. The author questions, first of all, the possible definition of deviance in a sexual key, taking up the investigations on the ‘deviant woman’ and the practices of the 1970s’ movements that overturned the concept of ‘deviance’. She then continues the discussion by reflecting on the processes of female criminalisation in terms of typification, stigmatization, and incarceration, highlighting the centrality of the criminal problem from a gender perspective, retracing the approaches that have accompanied the construction of crimes such as sexual violence, domestic violence, and, more recently, feminicide. Finally, with regard to the concept of security, the spatial dimension and the relationship between the paradigm of prevention and victimhood are investigated.