The Place of Bigamy in the Pantheon of Crime?

Abstract

Bigamy is officially classified as a ‘sex offence’. The offence is rare and attracts little criminological attention, and the reaction of the courts has become more lenient in recent years, yet the media coverage of bigamy remains quite pervasive. An analysis of the criminal career profile over 32 years (1963–94) of the 42 bigamists convicted in 1973 indicates that they had no other convictions for bigamy and only two had convictions for a sex offence. Among the 25 persons with other convictions, the crimes of theft/handling stolen goods and fraud and forgery predominate. In fact, the criminal careers of these bigamists are more similar to the criminal careers of white collar offenders than of other sex offenders. It is suggested that by looking at convicted bigamists' criminal careers one can more appropriately categorize the crime as deception, and in this context we need to consider how to respond to its perpetrators and victims.