Crime and Deviance: Gender, crime & justice Flashcards
(33 cards)
Gender patterns in crime (Heidensohn & Silvestri 2012)
-3/4 convicted offenders are male.
-By 40, 9% of girls & 32% of males have a criminal conviction.
-More female than male offenders are convicted of property offences.
-More males convicted of violence or sexual offences.
-Males more likely to be repeat offenders and commit more severe crimes and are 15X likelier to be convicted of homicide.
Do women commit more crime?
Some sociologists say that stats underestimate women crime:
1. Less likely to be reported - ie, shoplifting is less likely to be noticed or reported as well as prostitution.
2. May even be let off lightly.
Do women commit more crime? - The chivalry thesis (Pollak 1950)
-Most criminal justice agents (police officers, judges) are socialised to act in a chivalrous way towards women.
-Pollak argued that men don’t like accusing women and have a protective attitude, so they’re more lenient with them.
-Exaggerated gender differences in crime.
The chivalry thesis: Self report studies
-Individuals asked what crimes they’ve committed suggested women are treated more leniently.
-Graham & Bowling found though males were likelier to offend, the difference was smaller than in OS.
-2.33X likelier rather than 4X.
The chivalry thesis: Official statistics
-Females are likelier to be released on bail rather than remanded in custody.
-Females are likelier than males to receive a fine or a community sentence and less likey to be sent to prison.
-1/9 females receive a prison sentence for shoplifting but only 1/5 males.
Evidence against the chivalry thesis
-Buckle & Farrington’s observational study of shoplifting found that teuce as many males shoplift as females but the offenders in OS are fairly equal.
-Self report studies show men are likelier to commit crime (Hales et al).
-Underreporting of male crimes against women, 2012- only 8% of female victims of serious sexual assault reported it to the police.
Bias against women (Heidensohn)
Argued courts treat women more harshly than males when they deviate from gender norms.
-Double standards - courts punish girls but not boys for ‘promiscuous’ sexual activity. Sharpe found that 7/11 girls referred for support because they were sexually active but none out of 44 boys.
-Woken who don’t conform to accepted standards of monogamous heterosexuality are punished harsher.
-Found that Scottish judges were likelier to jail women whose children were in care than ‘good’ mothers.
-Walkate argued in rape cases, the victim is on trial to prove her respectability.
-Adler argues women such as single parents find it difficult to have their testimonies believed by the courts.
Explaining female crime
-Lobroso & Ferrero argue criminality is innate and there’s few ‘born criminals.’
-Higher levels of testosterone can explain gender differences in offences.
-Sociologists say; sex role theory, patriarchal control theory, class & gender deals & the liberation thesis.
Functionalist sex role theory (Parsons 1955)
-Men encouraged to be tough, risk taking and they’re likelier to be aggressive.
-Parsons says that while men take the instrumental role, women perform the expressive role.
-This gives girls access to an adult role model and boys reject feminine models of behaviour that express tenderness and emotion.
-Boys engage in ‘compensatory compulsory masculinity’ through delinquency.
-Cohen says that due to the lack of a role model, boys are likelier to turn to street gangs as a source of masculine identity to earn status.
(New Right support this for lone parent families).
Criticisms of Parsons sex role theory (Walklate)
-Criticised for its biological assumptions because he assumes that because women have the biological capacity to beat children, they’re suited to the expressive role.
-Feminists give other explanations in the patriarchal nature of society.
Heidensohn: Patriarchal control (1996) - Control at home
-Argued that because women’s behaviour is conformist as they commit fewer and less serious crimes than men because patriarchy controls them and reduces their opportunities to offend.
-Women’s domestic role confined them to their house & women who reject the role may face DV.
-Dobash & Dobash show many violent attacks is from men’s dissatisfaction with their wives’ performance of domestic duties.
-Men exercise control through financial power restricting women’s leisure time.
-Daughters are subject to this control as they’re less likely to go out as they please do they develop ‘bedroom culture’ involving socialising at home with friends.
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Heidensohn: Patriarchal control (1996) - Control in public
-Women are controlled through threat of male violence against them.
-Crime survey found that 54% of women avoided going out after dark, compared to 14% of men.
-Media reporting rapes adds to women’s fear.
-Also controlled by their fear of being defined as not respectable and affecting their reputation, women may avoid going into pubs to not be regarded as ‘loose’.
-Lees notes that in school, boys have control by labelling girls ‘slags’.
Heidensohn: Patriarchal control (1996) - Control at work
-Controlled by male supervisors keeping them in their place.
-Secual harassment.
-Women’s subordinate position reduces opportunities to engage in major criminal activity such as fraud/embezzlement.
-‘Glass ceiling’ prevents many women from rising to senior positions.
Evaluation of Patriarchal control
Carlen: Class & gender deals
-Conducted study of 39 W/C women convicted of a range of crimes.
-20 were in prison or youth custody at the time of the interviews.
-Argues most convicted are W/C.
The class deal: women who work offered material rewards with a decent standard of living & leisure.
The gender deal: patriarchal ideology promises women material & emotional rewards from family life through conforming to domestic roles.
-32 of the women had been in poverty, others couldn’t get jobs or claim benefits.
-Used crime to escape poverty.
-Some abused physically, spent time in care or were homeless & unemployed:
Evaluation of Class & gender deals
-Carlen shows how the failure of patriarchal society to deliver the promised ‘deals’ removed a control of women offending.
-Carlen’s sample was small and unrepresentative since it used mostly
W/C offenders.
The liberation thesis (Adler 1975)
-Argues that as women become liberated from patriarchy, their crimes will become more frequent and as serious as men’s.
-Argues that as oppurtunities for women have become more equal, women have begun to adopt traditionally ‘male’ roles in legitimate activity (work) & illegitimate (crime).
-Women commit more white collar crimes too because of their self assertiveness and confidence & able to be in senior positions.
Support for the Liberation thesis
-Both the overall rate of female offending & female share of offences rose during the second half of 20th century.
-> female share rose from 1 in 7 to 1 in 6.
-Media talk of ‘girl gangs’ while a study by Denscombe found females were as likely as males to engage in risk-taking behaviour and girls wanted to look ‘hard’ & be in control.
Criticisms of the Liberation thesis
-Female crime rate began rising in the 50s, before the women’s liberation movement in the 60s.
-Most female criminals are W/C / least likely to be influenced by women’s liberation.
-Chelsey-Lind says that in the USA poorer women are likelier to be criminals.
Females & Violent crime
-According to Hand & Dodd, between 2000-2008, no. of females arrested for violence rose by an average of 17% per year.
-Suggests females are increasingly committing ‘male’ crimes.
Females & Violent crime: The criminalisation of females (Steffensmeier & Schwartz 2009)
-Found that while female arrests grew from 1/5th to 1/3rd between 1980-2003, the rise was not matched by the findings in victim surveys or self report studies.
-Net widening conclude there’s been no change and the rise in arrests is due to the justice system prosecuting women for less serious forms of violence than previously.
Net widening
-Chesney-Lind argued that a policy of mandatory arrests for DV has left to an increased where if a couple fights,both are likely to be arrested.
-Sharpe & Gelsthorpe note there’s a growing trend towards prosecuting females for low-level physical altercations - even playground fights.
-Young & Worrall argue that girls’ misbehaviour in the past was considered a ‘welfare’ issue but not it’s been relabelled as ‘criminality’.
Females & Violent crimes: A moral panic about girls?
-The criminalisation is a social construction resulting from a moral panic over young women’s behaviour.
-Burman & Batchelor point to media depictions of young women as ‘drunk & disorderly, out of control.’
-Sharpe found that professionals were influenced by the media stereotype of ’ladettes. & media panic is affecting sentencing decisions.
-Overall effect is a self-fulfilling prophecy and an amplification spiral; reports of girls’ misbehaviour results in more convictions & more negative coverage.
Gender & Victimisation - CSEW 2012
-About 70% homicide victims are male.
-Female victims are likely to know their killer & 60% of the time, it’s a current or ex partner.
