"Bargaining with People's Lives": Understanding Women's Experiences of Guilty Pleas and Plea Negotiations in Victoria, Australia

Most criminal cases in Victoria are resolved through a guilty plea. Most guilty pleas are the result of complex plea negotiation processes between the prosecution and defence before trial. This thesis explores how women defendants experience these processes, drawing on interviews with defence practitioners and women with lived experience as defendants. It identifies the everyday pressures, barriers and constraints that shape women’s decisions and experiences of these pre-trial processes, often in ways that compromise access to justice and procedural justice. By centring women’s voices, the research reveals how plea processes operate in practice for a particularly vulnerable cohort of defendants.