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Heidensohn’s control theory
Family: women have domestic and paid work demanded of them so they have no time to commit crime
Dunscombe and Mardsen triple shift
Work: women don’t have the position to commit white collar crime
Loden coined the glass ceiling in a speech
Public: women are threatened by male violence at night and bringing their family into disrepute
Functionalist sex role theory
Parsons’ idea of men and women having instrumental and expressive roles respectively means that young boys tend to reject feminine role models of behaviour for self-expression (gentleness, emotion)
Cohen attributes the lack of adult male role models to one of the reasons why boys are more likely to turn to all-boy street gangs as a source of masculine identity
New right theorists agree
Sex role theory criticism
Walklate criticises sex role theory for its biological assumptions
Parsons assume that women are best suited for the expressive role because of their biological capacity to bear children
Adler liberation thesis
It assumes that if society becomes more equal, women’s crime rates will increase and their crimes will be more similar to men
Traditionally the domestic sphere limited both their legitimate and illegitimate means but social change gave them different opportunities; they were still expected to maintain their domestic duties
In the 90s the media created the laddette- a women who behaved like men her age (rowdy and sex focused
As the patriarchal structures of society break down, women will have more agency to commit crimes
The Peru Two took risks and flew to Spain; risk-taking is seen as a more masculine trait
Carlen gender and class deals
She proposes that working-class women conform due to two types of rewards and deals:
Class deal promises material reward with decent standard of living
Gender deal promises material and emotional reward by conform by family life
If these rewards are unavailable / unappealing then crime becomes more likely
Results of Carlen’s study
32/29 of the women had always lived in poverty
Some had gained qualifications but none helped with employment after their release
Some had abusive fathers, lived in care and were victims of domestic abuse which broke family bonds
Many participants reported feeling humiliated trying to obtain benefits
Hirsch risk vs, reward
Humans are rational so they will weigh the risk with the reward
If the reward outweighs the risk ,people turn to crime
Chesney-Lind net widening
Policy of mandatory arrests for both men and women for domestic arrest reports, irregardless of who’s the victim
CJS covers more ground now so more people get caught
Chivalry thesis
It suggests that womenn are given more lenient sentences because they are seen as gentle and maternal
This is used to explain their low conviction rate, which exaggerates the gap
