Gender and Crime

What possible Exam Questions could come up from the topic?

• Outline two reasons why the criminal justice system might be more leviant towards women (4).

• Outline two reasons for gender differences in criminal conviction rates (10).

• Assess Sociological explanations of Gender differences in patterns of offending, victimisation and punishment (30).

What is an introduction to the Topic?

• There are striking gender differences in the patterns of recorded crime. Females appear to commit far fewer crimes than males and also very different types of crimes.

• Traditionally, male-dominated criminology has ignored female criminality, but feminists have recently altered hat/

• Sociologists have also turned their attention to the causer of male criminality. In particular, there has been considerable interest in the relationship between masculinity and crime, and some sociologists have argued that crime is a way for some males to achieve and express their masculinity.

What does Heidensohn suggest about gender differences in Crime?

Frances Heidensohn (1996) point out that gender differences are perhaps ‘the most significant feature of recorded crime’.

• % of all offenders: male - 80, female - 20.

• % of prison population: male - 94, female - 6.

• Peak age: male - 19, female - 14-15

• Types of Crime: male - street, violent & Sexual crime, female - Shoplifting & Prostitution.

Some women do commit some horrific crimes e.g. Rosemary West.

What are the two Arguments that women commit fewer crimes?

• Argument One - ‘Female crimes’ such as shoplifting and prostitution are less likely to be reported than the violent or sexual crimes more often committed by men (Iceberg Effect).

• Argument Two - Even when ‘female crimes’ are detected or reported, they are less likely to be prosecuted or given a harsh sentence. This argument is known as the leniency or ‘chivalry thesis’. The thesis argues that most criminal justice agents (e.g. police officers, magistrates, judges, etc) are men and men are socialised to act in a chivalrous way towards women. This may no longer be the case with an increase in female policers officers etc.

What does Evidence from some self-report studies suggest about less crime from women?

• Evidence from some self-report studies, where individuals are asked about what crimes they have committed, does suggest that female offenders are treated more leniently. For example, John Graham and Ben Bowling’s (1995) research on a sample of 1,721 14-15 years old found that although males were more likely to offend, the difference was smaller than that recorded in official statistics.

• Women are also more likely than men to be cautioned rather than prosecuted. According to the Ministry of Justice (2009), 49% of females recorded as offending received a caution, whereas for males was 30%.

• Roger Hood’s (1992) study of over 3,000 defendants found that women were about one-third less likely to be jailed in similar cases.

What are some additional reasons why the criminal justice system might be more lenient towards women?

• Women with dependent children are seen as ‘primary care givers’.

• Women are more likely to show remorse.

• Women are less likely to reoffend (unless it’s corrected to prostitution or addiction).

• Women are often ‘led astray’ by men.

• Women have often been abused - Battered Women (person), Syndrome e.g. Lorena Bobbitt & Ruth Ellis.

What evidence is there against chivalry thesis?

• David Farrington & Alison Morris (1983) study of sentencing of 498 offences of theft in a magistrates’ court found that women were not sentenced more leniently for comparable.

What do many Feminists argue about Criminal Justice?

• Many feminists argue that, far from the criminal justice system being biased in favour of women, it is actually biased against them.

• Frances Heidensohn (1996) argues that courts treat females more harshly than males, when they deviate form gender norms.

• Courts tend to operate double standards, as they punish girls, but not boys for premature or promiscuous sexual activity. Women who do not conform to accepted standards of monogamous heterosexuality and motherhood are punished more harshly.

What does Carlen say about custodial sentences?

• Pat Carlen (1997) puts forward a similar view in relation to custodial sentences.

• She argues that when women are jailed, it is less for ‘the seriousness of their crimes and more according to the court’s assessment of then as wives, mothers and daughters’.

• Carlen found that Scottish judges were much more likely to jail women, whose children were in care than women who they saw as good mothers.

What do Feminists say about Double Standards in the criminal justice system?

• Feminists argue that these double standards exist because the criminal justice system is patriarchal.

• Nowhere is this more evident than in the way that the system deals with rape cases.

• There have been numerous cases of male judges making sexist, victim-blaming remarks.

How does Biological theory explain Female Crime?

• The first explanations of female crime were biological rather than sociological. Lombroso (1895) argued that criminality is innate, but that there were very few ‘born female criminals’. He found that female criminals were very much like men in that they had an exaggerated sexual desire.

• More recently, it has been argued that biological factors such as higher levels of testosterone in males can account for gender differences in violent crime.

• However, sociologists take the view that social rather than biological factors are the cause of gender differences in offending.

How does Gender Role Theory explains Gender Crime differences? (1)

• Early sociological explanations of gender differences in crime focused on differences in the socialisation of male and females. E.g. boys are encouraged to be tough, aggressive and risk-taking, and this can mean they are more disposed to commit acts of violence or take advantage of criminal opportunities when they present themselves.

• Functionalist Talcott Parsons (1955) traces differences in crime and deviance to the gender roles in the conventional nuclear family. While men take the instrumental, breadwinner role, performed largely outside the home, women perform the expressive role in the home, where they take the main responsibility for socialising children.

How does Gender Role Theory explains Gender Crime differences? (2)

• Whilst that gives girl access to an adult role model, it tends to means that boys reject feminine models of behaviour that express tenderness, gentleness and emotion. Instead, boys seek to distance themselves from such models by engaging in ‘compensatory compulsory masculinity’ through aggression and anti-social behavior, which can slip into acts of delinquency.

• Similarly, New Rights theorists argue that the absence of a male role models in matrifocal lone parent families leads to boys turning to criminal street gangs as a source of status and identity.

• Sandra Walklate (2003) criticises sex role theory for it’s biological assumption i.e. the assumption that women are more suited to the expressive role.

How does Control Theory explain Female Crime? (1)

• Frances Heidensohn (1985) argues that the reason that women commit less crime is because patriarchal society imposes control over women and this reduces their opportunities to offend.

Control at Home

• Women’s domestic role, with it’s constant round of housework and childcare, imposes severe restrictions on their time and movement, reducing their opportunities to offend.

• Girls are less likely to be allowed to come and go as they please or to stay out late. As a result, they develop a ‘bedroom culture’, socialising at home with friends rather than in public places.

• There is an emerging ‘gaming’ bedroom culture with boys.

How does Control Theory explain Female Crime? (2)

Control in Public

• Women are controlled in public places by the threat or fear of male violence against them, especially sexual violence.

• Sue Lees (1993) notes that in school, boys maintain control through sexualised verbal abuse e.g. labelling girls as ‘slags’ if they fail to conform to gender role expectations.

• These ‘double standards’ appear in social media ‘trolling’.

Control At Work

• Women’s behaviour at work is controlled by male supervisors and managers. Sexual harassment is widespread and helps keep women ‘in their place’. Furthermore, women’s subordinate position reduces their opportunities to engage in major criminal activity at work.

• E.g. the ‘glass ceiling’ prevents many women from rising to senior position where their is greater opportunity to commit fraud.

How does Control Theory explain Female Crime? (3)

• Heidensohn also recognises that patriarchy can also push women into crime e.g. women are more likely to be poor and may turn to theft or prostitution to gain a decent standard of living.

• Control Theory can be accused of seeing women’s behaviour as determined by external forces such as patriarchy, which underplays the importance of free will and choice in offending.

How does Liberation Thesis explain Gender Crime Differences? (1)

• If patriarchal society exercises control over women to prevent them from deviating, then it would seem logical to assume that, if society becomes less patriarchal and more equal, women’s crime rates will become similar to men’s. This is the ‘liberation thesis’ put forward by Freda Adler (1975).

• Adler arguers that changes in the structure of society have led changes in women’s offending behaviour. As patriarchal controls and discrimination have lessened, and opportunities in education and wok have become more equal, women have begun to adopt traditionally ‘male’ roles in both legitimate activity (work) and illegitimate activity (crime).

How does Liberation Thesis explain Gender Crime Differences? (2)

• As a result, women no longer just commit traditional ‘female’ crimes such as shoplifting and prostitution. They now also commit typically ‘male’ offences such as crimes of violence and white-collar crimes.

• However, it can be argued that Adler overestimates both the extent to which women have become liberated and the extent to which women have become liberated and the extent to which they are now able to engage in serious crime.

• The majority of female criminals are from lower socio-economic groups, which are the most unliberated of women. There is little evidence that the illegitimate opportunity structure of professional crime has opened up to women.

• Ladler & Hunt (2001) found that female gang members in the USA were expected to conform to conventional gender roles in the same as non-deviant girls.

• Characteristics of female criminals: Self-harming, Mental Illness, Less educated, Victims of abuse & suffering from addiction.

Ways in which women are committing more ‘masculine’ crime

• Women are becoming more involved in violent crime.

• Women are perpetrators of domestic violence more than first thought.

• Women are now portrayed as ‘action heroes’ in movies.

• Women can now take part in ‘combat heroes’ within their armed forces.

• Women are creating their own ‘gangs’, although most still associate with male gangs. e.g. Joanna Donnelay.

Why do Men commit Crime? (1)

• Although criminologists have focused mainly on male criminality, until recently they have not generally asked what it is about being a male that leads men to offend. James Messerschmidt (1993) argues that crime and deviance is a resource used by men to express their masculinity.

• Messerschmidt believes that different masculinities co-exist within society, but hegemonic masculinity is the dominant form that most men wish to accomplish (Alpha male).

• Some men have subordinated masculinities e.g. gay men, who have no desire to accomplish hegemonic masculinity. Similar to Walter Miller’s focal concerns. Many films glorify male criminals.

What do certain social groups resort to demonstrate their masculinity?

Certain social groups resort to different forms of rule breaking to demonstrate their masculinity:

• White middle-class youths have to subordinate themselves to teachers in order to achieve good grades (accommodating masculinity) but outside school their masculinity takes an oppositional form e.g. drinking, pranks, etc.

• White working-class youths have less chance of educational success, so their masculinity is oppositional both in and out of school (i.e. anti-school subculture).

• Black lower-class youths may have few expectations of a reasonable job and may use gang membership and violence to express their masculinity.

However, Messerschmidt doesn’t explain why not all men use crime to accomplish masculinity and he over-works the concept of masculinity to explain all male crimes, from joy riding to embezzlement.

What is a conclusion to this topic?

• With ‘gender’ being a such concept, it is likely to change as our society evolves. It would be a shame, if women were to adopt the ‘negative traits’ of traditional masculinity, such as using violence to settle an argument.

• In addition, there is a lot of ambiguity over Transgender rights and criminal justice system.