Crime And Deviance : Gender And Crime

Question 1

Key statistics - gender patterns in crime

Answer 1

2014 - men accounted for 3/4 of all persons convicted

Men accounted for 85% of those convicted for more serious criminal offences

Question 2

Why could the official statistics be criticised?

Answer 2

Female crimes are less likely to be reported

Women are less likely to be prosecuted / lighter sentences (chivalry thesis)

Question 3

Chivalry thesis

Answer 3

Pollak

Official statistics seriously underestimate female criminality

Women are treated more leniently by the police, CJS etc. as they’re usually male dominated and men have been taught to be chivalrous

Question 4

Evidence for the chivalry thesis

Answer 4

2006 Offending, Crime and Justice Survey (Roe and Ashe):

Gap between the proportion of males committing any offence (26%) and the proportion of females committing any offence (17%)

Ministry of Justice 2015:
Women are less likely to be given a custodial sentence than men - 2% for women and 10% for men

Question 5

Evidence against the chivalry thesis

Answer 5

Kate Seward - studied remand hearings and found that decisions were based on offence seriousness, without consideration of gender (thus, raw statistics do not take into account the exact nature of crimes)

Farrington and Morris’ - although men received more severe sentences, their research found that differences disappeared when severity of offences was taken into account

Heidensohn and Silvestri - rate of imprisonment has been rising for women and they rose faster than those for men in the 1990s

Question 6

Evaluation of the chivalry thesis

Answer 6

Heidensohn - women are not treated more leniently by courts, but that female offenders are punished more harshly because they are seen as double deviants - broken both the law and sex role behaviour

Feminists - men are treated more sympathetically than women - rape trials

Not about gender, but seriousness of offence

Walklate - female victims end up on trial rather than male suspects - women have to establish their respectability if their evidence is to be believed

Question 7

Reasons for the gender gap in criminality

Answer 7

Biological theories

Functionalist sex role theories

Control theories

Question 8

Reasons for the gender gap in criminality - biological theories + AO3

Answer 8

Lombroso and Ferrero

Criminality is innate within men - very few ‘born female criminals’

Higher levels of testosterone in men

Women are much more empathetic and have higher levels of fearfulness

AO3 - criticised for being outdated

Question 9

Reasons for the gender gap in criminality - sex role theory AO1 + AO2 + AO3

Answer 9

P + S socialisation key for shaping boys and girls involvement in criminal behaviour

Gender role socialisation - reduces the likelihood of female criminality while making male criminality more likely

Parsons – Prim. Soc. of girls prepared them for the expressive role of mothers/housewives where empathy/kindness is required (aggression = unfeminine)
Parsons - boys prepared for instrumental role + encouraged to be rough/risk takers (gentlemanly = unmanly)

Traditional notions of ‘femininity’ and ‘masculinity’ arguably continue to exert an influence on society and therefore on socialisation

AO2 - Heilman et al – men still feel pushed to live in the ‘Man Box’ = acting tough, looking attractive, sticking to rigid gender roles, using aggression

AO3: However = the segregated gender roles that existed in the 1940-50s no longer exist now, so gender socialisation can’t shed light on the gender gap in criminality

Question 10

Reasons for the gender gap in criminality - control theory

Answer 10

Heidensohn - patriarchal societies control women more effectively than they do men
= makes it more difficult for women to break the law.

Controlled at home: (LINK TO DUAL BURDEN + TRIPLE SHIFT)
Housewife role – limits their opportunities for criminality
Domesticity is a ‘form of detention’
They don’t have time for illegal activities when spending hours on housework and caring for children

Controlled in public:
Controlled by the male use of force and violence
Controlled by the idea of having a ‘good’ reputation
Controlled by the ‘ideology of separate spheres’ (where women’s lives should be centred on the home and men’s on the world beyond the home)

Controlled at work: (LINK TO WALBY’S 6 STRUCTURES OF PATRIARCHY)
Male superiors at work control women
Sexual harassment
Heidensohn – 60% of women have suffered from some form of sexual harassment at work

Question 11

AO2 for control theory

Answer 11

Sunita Toor’s study of British Asian girls

Low rates of criminality due to dynamics embedded in Asian culture - izzat / sharam

Therefore, women being controlled is significant to restricting their opportunities to commit crime

Question 12

AO3 for control theory (+ counter evaluation)

Answer 12

Second wave feminism:

Has brought about gender equality
Ideology of separate spheres is now seen as old fashioned
Women aren’t controlled in the 3 aspects of society (home, public, work)

Counter evaluation:
Women are still controlled by these aspects - women are still seen as housewives and sexual harassment is still prevalent - EG Harvey Weinstein case in USA

Question 13

Evidence for growing female criminality

Answer 13

1957 = men were responsible for 11x as many offences as women
2014 = men were responsible for 3x as many offences as women

Number of crimes committed by girls in England and wales went up by 25% between 2004-2010

Question 14

What are the 2 main reasons for growing female criminality?

Answer 14

Liberation thesis

Carlen’s study linking female offending to poverty and other kinds of deprivation

Question 15

The liberation thesis AO1

Answer 15

Freda Adler

Emancipation of women and increased economic opportunities for women lead to an increase in the female crime rate

As women attain social positions similar to men, and as the employment patterns of men and women become similar, so do their related crimes

Question 16

The liberation thesis AO2

Answer 16

Adler used FBI crime reports to state that from 1960-72

• arrests of female robbers grew by 277%
• arrests of female embezzlers grew by 280%

Question 17

Heidensohn and Silvestri - the liberation thesis

Answer 17

20th Century media portrayal of the ‘ladette’ = hard drinking and delinquent

Tara Young = females are now integral to gangs - emergence of the ‘shemale gangster’

Question 18

Criticisms of the liberation thesis

Answer 18

% increases are unreliable - female crime rate was very low to begin with, so large increases aren’t significant

Heidensohn - liberation is not the reason for the apparent rise in criminality - instead the CJS now class things like playground violence or trivial domestic incidents (which are mainly committed by women) as violent offences so it appears women commit more crime

Question 19

Reasons for growing female criminality - Carlen’s study

Answer 19

Unstructured interviews of 39 WC women who had been convicted

Carlen’s argues that WC women are generally led to conform through the promise of 2 types of rewards: (links to control theory as they are controlled by these promises)

The class deal - women who work will be offered material rewards with a decent standard of living

The gender deal - patriarchal ideology promises women material and emotional rewards from family life by conforming to conventional gender roles

If these rewards are not available (lack of opportunity), crime becomes more likely

The women she interviewed - 32 women had always been in poverty (class deal) and some had been abused by their fathers (gender deal)

Carlen concludes that poverty / being brought up in care or an oppressive family life were the two main causes of their criminality. (Basically, lack of opportunity)

Question 20

Carlen’s study AO2

Answer 20

Corston Report (2007) = 40% of women had not worked in the 5 years prior to entering prison, 61% had no qualifications.

Question 21

Carlen’s study - AO3

Answer 21

Carlen’s sample was small and may be unrepresentative, consisting of largely of working-class and serious offenders.