The first section of the paper provides a brief outline of the criminological tradition that links female deviance to psychological abnormality. This sets the context for the examination of the presentence reports and judges' comments in the sentencing that follows. The study involved 75 female offenders sentenced for arson, personal violence other than homicide, burglary, and homicide during the years 1981-91. Findings show that presentence investigators and judges viewed female deviance predominantly as a function of psychological disturbance. Although other factors were also considered to explain women's criminal conduct, these factors tended to be discounted or subsumed into psychological explanations. Data also showed that the evidence in support of psychological dysfunction in the cases examined was often weak or questionable. Implications of these findings are discussed, particularly the possibility that other significant aspects of the case may be ignored and that over-emphasis on psychodynamic explanatory factors may produce a distorted view of the offenders and their behavior. 3 tables and 50 references