Sentencing of female infanticide offenders in Malaysia and England & Wales / Collin Babat

Recent decisions on female infanticide offenders sentenced to long imprisonment have caused much public anger and outcry. Such a sentence might not be the best punishment because those offenders might be suffering from mental disturbance after childbirth or lactation. The experiences from many jurisdictions have demonstrated that such offenders received much lenient punishment due to their mental conditions at the time of the crime. Previous local researchers have not addressed such sentencing, let alone the impediments in such a process. The lack of sentencing guidelines, judges' attitudes, and not knowing the factors considered and the rationality in sentencing offenders are becoming a growing concern. Given such impediments, the central thesis is twofold. First and foremost, judges' decision-making process on the criminality of female infanticide offenders is somewhat uncertain. The second central thesis is that such lack of certainty and uniformity in sentencing female infanticide offenders may be attributed to the various interplay of issues, including judges' attitudes towards women offenders, the lack of sentencing guidelines, the aggravating and mitigating factors, which leads to disparity in sentencing in infanticide cases. Henceforth, the adoption of the Sentencing Guidelines, judicial transparency, accountability and consistency among judicial officers, and applying the right aggravating and mitigating factors are needed. Guided by these prepositions, this research examines how judges decide on the criminality of female infanticide offenders in Malaysia. At the theoretical level, this research analyses how the Focal Concern Theory, the Chivalry Theory and the Rational Choice Theory would inform the sentencing process. This research adopts a qualitative method. The primary data is obtained from semi-structured interviews with fifteen respondents' involving the judges, police officers, academicians, doctors, magistrates, prosecutors, lawyers and welfare officers. The sampling technique used is purposive sampling. The primary data is triangulated with the representatives from the Welfare Department. The findings of this research are in Chapter Five. The legal analyses of Malaysia and England & Wales are presented in Chapters Three and Four. The research revealed that sending these criminals to prison is unexceptional and harsh, and the length of imprisonment provided in the legislation is too long. The research aims to contribute to the body of knowledge and literature on the sentencing process in Malaysia, which would assist policymakers and court actors directly involved in such a process.