The Wire

Thirty-seven year old mother and former teacher, Karen Louise Ellis has spent her first night in jail. Her suspended sentence was overturned yesterday and replaced with a jail sentence for having sex with a 15 year old student. This has pleased men’s groups and commentators who believe female sex offenders should be treated the same as males. But is it the same crime? Monash University Law lecturer Bronwyn Naylor did a pilot study into how men and women are treated differently in court and said it’s an area very difficult to make comparisons in. She said both male and female sex offenders are breaching laws of trust or abusing the power of their position, therefore their gender shouldn’t make a difference.