gender and crime

Question 1

What percentage of men and women have had a criminal conviction?

Answer 1

• by the age of 40, 9% of women and 32% of men

Question 2

What fraction of convicted offenders are male in Wales?

Answer 2

• 4/5

Question 3

What crime are the sexes more likely to commit?

Answer 3

• females are more likely to be convicted for property offences
• males are more likely to be convicted for violent or sexual crime

Question 4

What are the 6 theories to why it appears that men commit more crimes than women and who came up with them?

Answer 4

• unreported and unnoticed
• the chivalry thesis – Pollak
• functionalist sex role theory – Parsons
• patriarchal control – Heidensohn
• liberation thesis – Adler
• the class and gender deals – Carlen

Question 5

What is the unreported an unnoticed theory?

Answer 5

• suggests that typically female crimes such as shoplifting are less likely
  
  • to be noticed
  • to be reported
    compared to violent or sexual crimes

Question 6

What is Pollak’s chivalry thesis?

Answer 6

• women are treated more leniently by the police and courts which are made up of mainly men that were raised to be chivalrous to women

Question 7

What is Parson’s functionalist sex role theory?

Answer 7

• due to their biology and socialisation, women are more nurturing by nature and therefore are incapble/unwilling to commit crime

Question 8

What is Heidensohn’s patriarchal control theory?

Answer 8

• women have at least one male figure in their life who does not want them to commit crime

Question 9

What is Adler’s liberation thesis?

Answer 9

• women are becoming more equal with men in society therefore committing similar levels of crime

Question 10

What are Carlen’s class and gender deals?

Answer 10

• women have two deals: the class deal and the gender deal
• the class deal is that if women perform well in society they are rewarded with money
• the gender deal is that if women perform well as a mother and wife they are praised
• if both break down, women turn to crime

Question 11

What are 4 famous female criminals and what did they do?

Answer 11

• Lindsey Lohan — driving under the influence of cocaine
• Maireed Philpott — charged with the murder of her 5 children
• Melissa Reid — one of two women arrested for smuggling cocaine in Peru
• Cheryl Cole — charged for a racist assault in a nightclub

Question 12

Why does Winlow believe men commit crime?

Answer 12

• globalisation has reduced the number of manual labour jobs for men to express their masculinity through

Question 13

Why does Messerschmidt believe men commit crime?

Answer 13

• masculinity is an accomplishment that men are constantly working to construct and present to others, this is a hegemonic masculinity
• crime and deviance is a resource men use to accomplish masculinity

Question 14

What is an evaluation to Winlow?

Answer 14

• doesn’t explain why most men in feminine jobs don’t commit crime
• focuses too much on working class crime

Question 15

What is an evaluation to Messerschmidt?

Answer 15

• doesn’t explain why men commit non-masculine crime like tax evasion
• masculinity now is arguably much more subjective and flexible