A Jury of Her Peers: The Impact of the First Female Jurors on Criminal Convictions

This paper uses an original data set of more than 3000 cases from 1918 to 1926 in the Central Criminal Courts of London to study the effect of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act of 1919. Implemented in 1921, this Act made women eligible to serve on English juries. Results based on a pre-post research design imply that the inclusion of women had little effect on overall conviction rates but significantly impacted conviction rates on particularly female salient cases: sex offenses, violent offenses with female versus male victims, and female defendants charged with ‘other’ (largely abortion related) offenses.. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.