Crime 5 - Gender, crime and justice Flashcards
(14 cards)
Gender patterns in crime
What are the gender patterns in crime?
-more crime is committed by males (4/5)
-property offences are more likely to be committed by females
-sexual or violent crimes are more likely to be committed by men
Gender patterns in crime
Why is female crime underestimated?
-female crimes are less to be reported, e.g: shoplifting
-even when women’s crimes are reported, they are less likely to be reported
Chivalry thesis
What is this idea and which sociologist discusses it?
-The idea that women are less likely to be prosecuted for their offences, the criminal justice system is more lenient to women,
because its agents are men, who are socialised to act ‘chivalrously’ towards women
-Pollak: men have a protective attitude towards women, so they are
unwilling to arrest, charge, prosecute or convict them, their crimes don’t add to official statistics
Evidence for the chivalry thesis
Which studies help to prove the existance of the chivalry thesis?
-self-report studies and official statistics
Graham & Bowling: young males are 2.33x more likely to admit having committed an offence than women
Evidence against chivalry thesis
What are some sociologists who go against the chivalry thesis?
Farrington & Morris: women were not leniently sentenced for comparable sentences
Box: study of self-report studies reinforces this, women who committ serious offences are not treated nicer than men
-many male crimes also go unreported, for example crimes of the powerful
Bias against women
What do Feminists argue about the criminal justice’s treatment towards women?
-it is biased against them
-the CJS treats women more harshly, especially when they deviate away from their traditional gender roles in the nuclear family of monogamous hetersexuality and motherhood
Bias against women
Heidensohn
-courts have double standards in court, girls are punished for promiscuous sexual activity more than boys
-she also discusses patriarchal control in homes where women are restricted from leaving the house to even have the opportunity to commit crimes (control at home, in public, and at work)
Functionalist sex role theory
Parsons
-functionalist explanation focuses on gender socialisation and role models in the nuclear family to explain gender differences in crime
-Women perform the expressive and socialisation role in home, gives girls an adult role model, boys reject feminine models of behaviour (tenderness, gentleness and emotion)
-boys distance themselves, engage in ‘compensatory compulsory masculinity’ – risk-taking, aggression and anti-social behaviour
-Men -> instrumental role, performed largely outside the home, socialisation more difficult for boys, A.K. Cohen: absence of an adult male role model in the home so boys are more likely to turn to all-male street gangs as a source of masculine identity, earn status by acts of delinquency
-Similarly, right realists argue that the absence of a male role model in matrifocal lone-parent families leads to boys’ delinquency
Carlen: class and gender deals
What did Carlen study and discover?
-studied 39 working-class women who had been convicted of a range of crimes, twenty were in prison or youth custody
-argues that most convicted serious female criminals are working-class
Carlen: class and gender deals
How does Carlen use Hirschi’s control theory?
-uses Hirschi’s control theory to explain female crime
-Hirschi argues that humans act rationally and are controlled by being offered a ‘deal’: rewards in return for conforming to norms
-people commit crime if they don’t believe they will get the rewards, or if the rewards of crime appear greater than the risks
-Carlen says WC women are led to confirm with the promise of two deals: class deal (women get a decent standard of living) , and the gender deal (conform to the conventional domestic gender role and gain the reward of family life)
-women may deviate if they don’t reap the rewards of these deals
Adler: liberation thesis
What is the liberation thesis?
-‘liberation thesis’ argues that as women become liberated from patriarchy, their offending will become similar to men’s, leading to a new type of female criminal
-patriarchal controls and discrimination have lessened and opportunities have become more equal
-more women in senior positions at work, opportunity to commit serious white-collar crimes
Females and violent crime
What evidence is there against the increase in female crime?
Worrall: argues that in the past, girls’ misbehaviour was more likely to be seen as a ‘welfare’ issue, whereas now it has been re-labelled as criminality
-increase in female convictions due to a media-inspired moral panic about young women being ‘out of control’, Sharpe: found CJS professionals influenced by media stereotypes of violent ‘ladettes’
Gender and victimisation
What did the Crime survey of England and Wales find?
-Victim surveys show gender differences in victimisation and in the relationship between victim and offender
-Women have a greater fear of crime but the CSEW shows they are at less risk, however, some local surveys have found women are in fact at greater risk
Why do men commit crime
What does Messerschmidt say?
-argues that masculinity is an ‘accomplishment’ – something that men
have to constantly work at constructing
-Hegemonic masculinity is the dominant form of masculinity and the one that most men wish to accomplish
-Subordinated masculinities Some men, including many lower-class and ethnic minority men, lack the resources to accomplish hegemonic masculinity and so turn to crime
