Internationally, the matter of gender difference in criminal court decision making is a contentious one, but in Australasia little substantive research or debate has occurred on this issue. This paper attempts to remedy this deficit by summarising research findings from a New Zealand-based PhD project (Jeffries, 2001) which considered the question of gender and criminal justice decision making. Results from this project show that a) sentencing and remand outcomes often differ for adult men and women, with the former usually receiving ‘harsher’ sanctions, b) different factors are often considered when determining men’s and women’s judicial outcomes and, c) certain ‘types’ of men and women are more likely to be extended judicial leniency. In explanation, gendered ways of viewing, understanding and judging offenders indicated the manner in which judicial processing came to be differentiated by sex.Theoretically, these findings can be partially understood using chivalry, paternalism, social control and social cost arguments. However, by themselves, none of these theoretical perspectives are considered complete and this paper calls for a more integrated theory of gender and criminal justice processing.