Women Sex Offenders in the Ozarks Tend to Get Lighter Sentences Than Men

Article here. Excerpt:

'SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — There's not a lot of hard data about this but there are anecdotes. Courts tend to be more sympathetic towards women offenders. Their sexual crimes are rarely violent and most often statutory with older teenage victims. One mother tells us that shouldn't matter.

"Our boy is a hero for going through the court system."

We first talked to this Ozarks mother a year and a half ago when Amanda Jackson faced three counts of felony statutory rape in two Ozarks counties for having sex with a 14-year-old. Jackson's set for sentencing on two of the counts at the end of the month.

"Being she's a woman I don't know if it's going as hard as if she was a man. I feel like a man gets put in jail right away and she should have been put in jail right away," the mother tells us.
...
Chad Nevels got four years for sex with a 14-year-old, while Allison Peck originally got probation.

Patterson also tells us many sex offenders were themselves victims at one time in their lives, and women abused as children tend to elicit more sympathy in sentencing than men who were abused.'