This work analyses the relationship between gender, victimisation, criminality, execution of the prison sentence and social reintegration of the female offender. They are the fruits of the work carried out within the R & D project “Equality and criminal law: gender and nationality as primary criteria for discrimination” (R & D 2010 – 19781). The conclusions to be drawn here have been drawn from methods generally used in criminology, such as surveys (which were both victimisation and criminality) and discussion forums carried out in a number of Spanish prisons and in another Salvadorian prison. The study of the data provided by official statistics and case law has also been used. All these sources of information have come to the conclusion that gender is a guiding factor in the lives of female victims of crime, which affects their criminal career and subsequently becomes a decisive factor during the execution of the sentence. We can legitimately ask them to eliminate violence from their lives, but only if we are able to eliminate gender-based violence that society tolerates them. If this is not the case, their criminal actions are only a wrong and unconscious form of self-defence.