Gender, Crime and Justice

MALE AND FEMALE CRIMINALITY:

• Female criminality was neglected because females were seen as committing less crime and because their behaviour was seen as less in need of controlling.

• Feminists have focused attention on causes of female crime.

• Sociologists are paying more attention to looking more at the causes of male criminality. The relationship between masculinity and crime has become a popular area.

GENDER PATTERNS IN CRIME:

• Heidensohn and Sivestri (2012) – gender differences are the most significant feature of recorded crime:

  • Four out of five convicted offenders in England and Wales are men.

  • By the age of 40, 9% of females have a criminal conviction, as against 32% of males.

  • A higher proportion of female than male offenders are convicted of property offences (except burglary).

  • A higher proportion of male than female offenders are convicted of violence or sexual offences.

  • Males are more likely to be repeat offenders, to have longer criminal careers and to commit more serious crime. E.g Men are about 15 times more likely to be convicted of homicide.

OFFICIAL STATISTICS NOT REFLECTING TRUE EXTENT OF FEMALE CRIME:

• Typically ‘female’ crimes are less likely to be reported, shoplifting is less likely to be noticed or reported than the violent or sexual crimes committed by men.

• Similarly, prostitution – which females are more much more likely than males to engage in – is unlikely to be reported by either party.

• Even when women’s crimes are detected or reported, they’re less likely to be prosecuted, or if prosecuted, more likely to be let off lightly.

THE CHIVALRY THESIS:

• Most police officers, magistrates and judges are men.

• Pollak:

  • ‘Men hate to accuse women and thus send them to their punishment, police officers dislike to arrest them, district attorneys to prosecute them, judges and juries to find them guilty, and so on.’

• This affects official statistics because the system is more lenient towards women and they’re less likely to appear in official statistics.

  • Self report studies also show this conclusion.

• Graham and Bowling:

  • On a sample of 1,721 14-25 year olds found that although males were more likely to offend, the difference was smaller than in the official statistics.

  • They found males were 2.33 times more likely to admit to having committed an offence in the previous 12 months – whereas official stats show males 4 times more likely to offend.

• Flood-Page et al:

  • While only 1 in 11 female self-reported offenders had been cautioned or prosecuted, the figure for males was over 1 in 7 self-reported offenders.

• 3 official statistics appear to support this thesis:

  1. Females are more likely than males to be released on bail rather than remanded in custody.

  2. Females are more likely than males to receive a fine or a community sentence, and less likely to be sent to prison. Women, on average, receive shorter prison sentences.

  3. Only one in nine female offenders receive a prison sentence for shoplifting, but one in five males.

• Hood:

  • Study of over 3,000 defendants found that women were about one-third less likely to be jailed in similar cases.

EVIDENCE AGAINST CHIVALRY THESIS:

• Farrington and Morris: women weren’t sentenced more leniently than males in their study of 408 theft offences in a magistrates court.

• Buckle and Farrington: witnessed twice as many males as females shoplifting in an observational study of a department store (in official statistics they’re more or less equal) – may mean women are more likely to be prosecuted for shoplifting.

• Hales et al: males commit more crime in all major offence categories, and other studies show the gap widening as offences become more serious.

• This evidence suggests that women aren’t treated differently like the chivalry thesis suggests and it’s just that men typically commit more crime, admit to it and don’t show remorse.

FEMINIST ARGUMENTS AGAINST CHIVALRY THESIS:

• Double standards – courts punish girls but not boys for premature or promiscuous sexual activity. ‘Wayward’ girls can end up in care without ever having committed an offence.

• Women who don’t conform to accepted standards of monogamous heterosexuality and motherhood are punished more harshly.

• Stewart: magistrates’ perceptions of female defendants’ characters were based on stereotypical gender roles.

• Smart: quotes judge Wild as saying ‘Women who say no do not always mean no. It is not just a question of how she says it, how she shows and makes it clear. If she doesn’t want it she only has to keep her legs shut’.

• Say a patriarchal society causes these issues.

• Evidence shows the chivalry thesis doesn’t exist and women are actually more likely to be prosecuted if they aren’t seen as respectable.