Georgina Rychner | Monash University (original) (raw)
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Papers by Georgina Rychner
International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 2021
The historical examination of filicide in Australia is limited and often focuses on case studies ... more The historical examination of filicide in Australia is limited and often focuses on case studies of maternal filicides. Longitudinal trends of Australian filicide offending have focused almost exclusively on the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Our study aims to fill a gap in Australian criminological knowledge about filicide. Utilising prison and Supreme Court records from 1860 and 1920, we plot the extent of filicide offending by men and women in Victoria to create a more comprehensive picture of filicide perpetration. This study also tests whether identified motives and risk factors for filicide today can be applied to historical data, to make these data accessible to criminologists studying filicide in the twenty-first century.
Through a focus on the criminal trial in the colony, and later, state of Victoria, this dissertat... more Through a focus on the criminal trial in the colony, and later, state of Victoria, this dissertation explores the operation of capital punishment as a system that allowed for popular readings of madness in relation to serious interpersonal crimes between 1880 and 1939. Insanity was increasingly used by ordinary people as a discursive tool by which to contest the death penalty, and in some cases, a means by which to protest the material circumstances that governed their lives.
Lilith: a feminist history journal, 2017
The case of Margaret Heffernan, a twenty-three year old woman sentenced to death for the drowning... more The case of Margaret Heffernan, a twenty-three year old woman sentenced to death for the drowning of her son in 1900, created considerable public debate regarding her guilt. Historians have used Heffernan's case to demonstrate attitudes toward violent mothers in the period, yet the concept of 'madness' and its centrality to Heffernan's case has been overlooked. Heffernan aroused public sympathy, several large petitions for her release, and was eventually granted a commuted sentence of only two years imprisonment due to the public's willingness to attribute her behaviour to madness. An examination of Victorian lunatic asylum committals and public discourses surrounding femininity and 'madness' reveals that Heffernan's case was highly reflective of a culture in which violent women were often deemed irrational.
History & Crime: A Transdisciplinary Approach, 2021
International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 2020
The historical examination of filicide in Australia is limited and often focuses on case studies ... more The historical examination of filicide in Australia is limited and often focuses on case studies of maternal filicides. Longitudinal trends of Australian filicide offending have focused almost exclusively on the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Our study aims to fill a gap in Australian criminological knowledge about filicide. Utilising prison and Supreme Court records from 1860 and 1920, we plot the extent of filicide offending by men and women in Victoria to create a more comprehensive picture of filicide perpetration. This study also tests whether identified motives and risk factors for filicide today can be applied to historical data, to make these data accessible to criminologists studying filicide in the twenty-first century.
The turn of the nineteenth century saw an increase in the insanity defence and a language of ment... more The turn of the nineteenth century saw an increase in the insanity defence and a language of mental aberration in Victoria's capital trials. Historians have outlined the judicial development of the insanity defence in Australia, yet little attention has been paid to how defences of insanity operated in the practice of the courtroom. A study of 126 capital cases tried in Victoria between 1890 and 1935 indicates of how defendants argued insanity, how this plea was received in the courtroom, and how claims to insanity could influence sentencing outcomes. This study will demonstrate the tensions between doctors and lawmakers regarding how insanity and criminal responsibility were determined, as well as how public conceptions of mental illness influenced these discourses.
The case of Margaret Heffernan, a twenty-three year old woman sentenced to death for the drowning... more The case of Margaret Heffernan, a twenty-three year old woman sentenced to death for the drowning of her son in 1900, created considerable public debate regarding her guilt. Historians have used Heffernan's case to demonstrate attitudes toward violent mothers in the period, yet the concept of 'madness' and its centrality to Heffernan's case has been overlooked. Heffernan aroused public sympathy, several large petitions for her release, and was eventually granted a commuted sentence of only two years imprisonment due to the public's willingness to attribute her behaviour to madness. An examination of Victorian lunatic asylum committals and public discourses surrounding femininity and 'madness' reveals that Heffernan's case was highly reflective of a culture in which violent women were often deemed irrational.
Thesis Chapters by Georgina Rychner
PhD dissertation, 2020
This dissertation examines the way that medical ‘experts’ and non-experts—judges, jurors, the pre... more This dissertation examines the way that medical ‘experts’ and non-experts—judges, jurors, the press and the broader public—employed narratives and understandings of insanity during a period in which notions of mental health were in flux. Through a focus on the criminal trial in the colony, and later, state of Victoria between 1880-1939, this dissertation explores the operation of capital punishment as a system that allowed for popular readings of madness in relation to serious interpersonal crimes.
The system of capital punishment in the Australian colonies allowed for public activism during a two-week period between conviction and execution/commutation in which organisations, groups, families and individuals could submit letters, petitions or deputations to the Premier in support or condemnation of particular prisoners on a case-by-case basis. This dissertation maps the uneven activism deployed in these cases. Insanity was increasingly used by ordinary people as a discursive tool by which to contest the death penalty, and in some cases, a means by which to protest the material circumstances that governed their lives, conditions they viewed as having led offenders to commit crimes of desperation.
This research draws upon a dataset of 215 convicted trials to examine trials of murder and sexual assault at the Melbourne Supreme Court and assizes between 1880 and 1939. The dataset reveals general trends in crime prevalence, leniency and mental impairment defences that provides the ‘bigger picture’ of the subject matter that is used to contextualise specific case studies. This study is primarily a qualitative analysis of selected criminal trials within the sample that aims to uncover doctors’, lawyers’ and laypersons’ interactions with the new and evolving ‘science’ of psychiatry in the context of crime and criminal responsibility. The late-nineteenth century the criminal courtroom became a site of contested knowledge regarding mental states, witnessing insanity claims voiced by doctors, lawyers, judges and everyday people that were inextricably linked to ideas regarding criminality, gender, race and class. The broad-ranging representations of offenders are examined within a post-structural theoretical framework, in particular the ways in which gender informed judgments regarding mental states and culpability.
Chapter One outlines the operation of the criminal justice system, the origins of the field of psychiatry and the popular culture around crime that existed in the colony during the late-nineteenth century in order to contextualise the case studies that follow. Chapter Two examines how constructions of femininity heavily impacted upon trials of women who killed infants. Chapter Three investigates how insanity claims presented in trials for male-perpetrated intimate partner homicides were informed by middle-class visions for respectable masculinity between 1880 and 1914. Chapter Four considers the sizable historiography of women who committed murder (excluding infanticide) in Australia, and examines factors of femininity and class in putting forward a more nuanced and historically-grounded approach to the history of women who killed partners between 1880 and 1939. Chapter Five explores male-perpetrated intimate partner homicides between 1914 and 1939, demonstrating how factors such as service in the First World War, the economic depression and the circulation of psychoanalytic language affected constructions of masculinity and insanity at trial. Chapter Six demonstrates how contemporary understandings of sexuality, race and gender informed insanity claims in trials for sexual offences throughout the period, examining the three capital sexual offences of rape, buggery and carnal knowledge of a girl under ten alongside one another.
International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 2021
The historical examination of filicide in Australia is limited and often focuses on case studies ... more The historical examination of filicide in Australia is limited and often focuses on case studies of maternal filicides. Longitudinal trends of Australian filicide offending have focused almost exclusively on the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Our study aims to fill a gap in Australian criminological knowledge about filicide. Utilising prison and Supreme Court records from 1860 and 1920, we plot the extent of filicide offending by men and women in Victoria to create a more comprehensive picture of filicide perpetration. This study also tests whether identified motives and risk factors for filicide today can be applied to historical data, to make these data accessible to criminologists studying filicide in the twenty-first century.
Through a focus on the criminal trial in the colony, and later, state of Victoria, this dissertat... more Through a focus on the criminal trial in the colony, and later, state of Victoria, this dissertation explores the operation of capital punishment as a system that allowed for popular readings of madness in relation to serious interpersonal crimes between 1880 and 1939. Insanity was increasingly used by ordinary people as a discursive tool by which to contest the death penalty, and in some cases, a means by which to protest the material circumstances that governed their lives.
Lilith: a feminist history journal, 2017
The case of Margaret Heffernan, a twenty-three year old woman sentenced to death for the drowning... more The case of Margaret Heffernan, a twenty-three year old woman sentenced to death for the drowning of her son in 1900, created considerable public debate regarding her guilt. Historians have used Heffernan's case to demonstrate attitudes toward violent mothers in the period, yet the concept of 'madness' and its centrality to Heffernan's case has been overlooked. Heffernan aroused public sympathy, several large petitions for her release, and was eventually granted a commuted sentence of only two years imprisonment due to the public's willingness to attribute her behaviour to madness. An examination of Victorian lunatic asylum committals and public discourses surrounding femininity and 'madness' reveals that Heffernan's case was highly reflective of a culture in which violent women were often deemed irrational.
History & Crime: A Transdisciplinary Approach, 2021
International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 2020
The historical examination of filicide in Australia is limited and often focuses on case studies ... more The historical examination of filicide in Australia is limited and often focuses on case studies of maternal filicides. Longitudinal trends of Australian filicide offending have focused almost exclusively on the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Our study aims to fill a gap in Australian criminological knowledge about filicide. Utilising prison and Supreme Court records from 1860 and 1920, we plot the extent of filicide offending by men and women in Victoria to create a more comprehensive picture of filicide perpetration. This study also tests whether identified motives and risk factors for filicide today can be applied to historical data, to make these data accessible to criminologists studying filicide in the twenty-first century.
The turn of the nineteenth century saw an increase in the insanity defence and a language of ment... more The turn of the nineteenth century saw an increase in the insanity defence and a language of mental aberration in Victoria's capital trials. Historians have outlined the judicial development of the insanity defence in Australia, yet little attention has been paid to how defences of insanity operated in the practice of the courtroom. A study of 126 capital cases tried in Victoria between 1890 and 1935 indicates of how defendants argued insanity, how this plea was received in the courtroom, and how claims to insanity could influence sentencing outcomes. This study will demonstrate the tensions between doctors and lawmakers regarding how insanity and criminal responsibility were determined, as well as how public conceptions of mental illness influenced these discourses.
The case of Margaret Heffernan, a twenty-three year old woman sentenced to death for the drowning... more The case of Margaret Heffernan, a twenty-three year old woman sentenced to death for the drowning of her son in 1900, created considerable public debate regarding her guilt. Historians have used Heffernan's case to demonstrate attitudes toward violent mothers in the period, yet the concept of 'madness' and its centrality to Heffernan's case has been overlooked. Heffernan aroused public sympathy, several large petitions for her release, and was eventually granted a commuted sentence of only two years imprisonment due to the public's willingness to attribute her behaviour to madness. An examination of Victorian lunatic asylum committals and public discourses surrounding femininity and 'madness' reveals that Heffernan's case was highly reflective of a culture in which violent women were often deemed irrational.
PhD dissertation, 2020
This dissertation examines the way that medical ‘experts’ and non-experts—judges, jurors, the pre... more This dissertation examines the way that medical ‘experts’ and non-experts—judges, jurors, the press and the broader public—employed narratives and understandings of insanity during a period in which notions of mental health were in flux. Through a focus on the criminal trial in the colony, and later, state of Victoria between 1880-1939, this dissertation explores the operation of capital punishment as a system that allowed for popular readings of madness in relation to serious interpersonal crimes.
The system of capital punishment in the Australian colonies allowed for public activism during a two-week period between conviction and execution/commutation in which organisations, groups, families and individuals could submit letters, petitions or deputations to the Premier in support or condemnation of particular prisoners on a case-by-case basis. This dissertation maps the uneven activism deployed in these cases. Insanity was increasingly used by ordinary people as a discursive tool by which to contest the death penalty, and in some cases, a means by which to protest the material circumstances that governed their lives, conditions they viewed as having led offenders to commit crimes of desperation.
This research draws upon a dataset of 215 convicted trials to examine trials of murder and sexual assault at the Melbourne Supreme Court and assizes between 1880 and 1939. The dataset reveals general trends in crime prevalence, leniency and mental impairment defences that provides the ‘bigger picture’ of the subject matter that is used to contextualise specific case studies. This study is primarily a qualitative analysis of selected criminal trials within the sample that aims to uncover doctors’, lawyers’ and laypersons’ interactions with the new and evolving ‘science’ of psychiatry in the context of crime and criminal responsibility. The late-nineteenth century the criminal courtroom became a site of contested knowledge regarding mental states, witnessing insanity claims voiced by doctors, lawyers, judges and everyday people that were inextricably linked to ideas regarding criminality, gender, race and class. The broad-ranging representations of offenders are examined within a post-structural theoretical framework, in particular the ways in which gender informed judgments regarding mental states and culpability.
Chapter One outlines the operation of the criminal justice system, the origins of the field of psychiatry and the popular culture around crime that existed in the colony during the late-nineteenth century in order to contextualise the case studies that follow. Chapter Two examines how constructions of femininity heavily impacted upon trials of women who killed infants. Chapter Three investigates how insanity claims presented in trials for male-perpetrated intimate partner homicides were informed by middle-class visions for respectable masculinity between 1880 and 1914. Chapter Four considers the sizable historiography of women who committed murder (excluding infanticide) in Australia, and examines factors of femininity and class in putting forward a more nuanced and historically-grounded approach to the history of women who killed partners between 1880 and 1939. Chapter Five explores male-perpetrated intimate partner homicides between 1914 and 1939, demonstrating how factors such as service in the First World War, the economic depression and the circulation of psychoanalytic language affected constructions of masculinity and insanity at trial. Chapter Six demonstrates how contemporary understandings of sexuality, race and gender informed insanity claims in trials for sexual offences throughout the period, examining the three capital sexual offences of rape, buggery and carnal knowledge of a girl under ten alongside one another.