Gender and crime Flashcards
What do statistics show about gender differences in crime?
At all stages of the criminal justice system, women are significantly less likely than men to be in trouble with the law- e.g. men are more than five times more likely to be arrested than women, and three times more likely to be taken to court; men are 19 times more likely to be in prison than women.
Whilst there have been fluctuations in the proportion of males and females that are convicted over time, the statistics have remained relatively stable- e.g. Heidensohn and Silvestri (2012) found that in 1867 women had been convicted of 23% of crimes.
There are significant sex differences in offence type- for example, men commit many more homicides. Not included in the graphs, but women represent particularly low proportions of those convicted for burglary (5.2%) and sexual offences (1.4%). Shoplifting is one offence where women’s conviction rates are particularly high. Why might this be?
What do self-report studies show regarding gender and crime?
Newburn (2013) cites a number of self-report studies that have found that males are indeed more likely than females to admit to offences, and are more likely to have committed several offences rather than just one.
Data from self-report studies therefore seems to support the picture from official statistics that males are more criminal than women.
However, self-report studies also seem to suggest that the difference in male and female offending rates may not be that as recorded in official statistics, which imply that men are several times more likely to offend than women.
This raises questions about why men may be more likely to offend, but also about whether males and females are treated equally in the criminal justice system.
Describe patterns of gender and victimisation.
Males maintain higher risk of personal crime than females. In 2019/20, 3.9% of males were victim to personal crime, compared to 3.4% of females.
The proportion of females experiencing domestic abuse in 2019/20 was 7.3%, double that of males (3.6%).
In 2018/19, 671 homicides took place; 64% of victims were male and 36% were female.
In 2019/20, sexual assault towards females within the last year were over 4 times higher than towards males. Of all sexual offences, indecent exposure and unwanted touching had the highest prevalence rate.
Questions have been raised about the fairness of the CJS not just to female suspects and offenders, but also to female victims. What have feminists argued about how the CJS treats female victims?
List the different explanations for gender differences in crime.
Hidden female offenders
Gender bias in criminal justice: the chivalry thesis and bias against women in the criminal justice system
Explanations for female ‘conformity’- i.e. why they commit less crime
Feminist perspectives on women and crime
Explanations for male criminality
Explain hidden female offenders as an explanation for gender differences in crime rates.
Otto Pollack ( 1950) argued that women get away with much more crime than men do, and official statistics grossly underestimate female offending.
He argued that women are able to get away with their crimes because they are more skilled than men at deceiving people. This, he argued, derived from the fact that women have to learn deception in order to hide menstruation and deceive their partner in relation to sex.
Pollack claimed that women escaped detection for offences such as shoplifting, prostitution, and even poisoning relatives and sexually abusing their children.
Explain the chivalry thesis as an explanation for gender differences in crime rates.
A more credible theory is that mostly male police officers/ judges tend to attempt to protect women from the criminal justice system or treat them more leniently out of gentlemanliness.
According to a review of research by Haralambos and Holborn (2013), women are: more likely to be given cautions rather than prosecuted; slightly more likely to be given a pre-court sanction rather than be taken to court; and less likely than men to be sent to prison when convicted.
However, raw figures like this do not tell the whole story- i.e. women and men commit different crimes.
How do feminists argue the criminal system is biased against women?
Feminists in particular have argued that, far from being chivalrous, the criminal justice system is often biased against women.
Sandra Walklate (2004) for example, argues that in rape cases women’s complaints are often not taken seriously and a large majority of alleged rapists are never prosecuted or found not guilty. She believes that, in effect, it is the female victim rather than the male suspect who ends up on trial because they are often questioned about their sexual history.
Feminists have long argued that DV is not taken seriously- whilst things do seem to be improving, there are still frequently cases where women do not seem to be protected from their abusers.
Explain the argument that there are double standards in the criminal justice system.
Rather than being consistently biased either in favour of men or of women, the criminal justice system can be seen as gendered.
Heidensohn (1985) suggests that there are double standards in the criminal justice system. In particular, women are treated particularly badly when they deviate from the norms of behaviour associated with femininity- for example, by being sexually promiscuous.
These women are seen as ‘doubly deviant’- not just breaking the norms of society, but also breaking norms suggesting how it is appropriate for women to behave. Double deviance leads to more severe treatment- e.g. sexually promiscuous girls are more likely to be taken into care. Yet, courts may be reluctant to send mothers with young children to prison.
There may be something of a Madonna/ Whore (or Witches/ Wives) complex within the CJS, with women treated accordingly- this is supported by research by Kate Steward who found that gender played a role in decisions about whether to remand women in custody, with the outcome often based upon gender linked moral judgements.
What is an example of double standards in the perception of female crime?
Maxine Carr provided a false alibi to her boyfriend who killed two 10 year old girls. Society ended up being even more hateful towards her than to her boyfriend and she had to obtain a Mary Bell order, allowing her and her daughter to receive new names and move somewhere else.
Explain Hedderman’s argument against the criminal justice system being biased.
Hedderman argues that the differences in sentencing between men and women should not necessarily be seen as bias: men and women can be affected differently by being sent to prison, and offenders have different circumstances such as childcare responsibilities.
List the different explanations for why fewer women commit crimes.
Biological explanations Sex role theory The liberationist perspective Social control The class and gender bargain
Explain the biological explanation for why women commit fewer crimes.
Biological explanations start from a belief that there is innate difference between males and females, and take an uncritical attitude towards the dominant sexual stereotypes of women as passive, domestic, and maternal. ‘Normal’ women are therefore less likely to commit crime.
However, some researchers- e.g. Dalton (1964)- have claimed that hormonal/ menstrual factors may play a role in women’s crime in a minority of cases.
Biological explanations for women’s reduced criminality fail to explain differences in crime rates for women in different countries or over time.
Explain the sex-role theory explanation for why women commit fewer crimes.
Sex-role theory explains gendered differences in offending in terms of the differences in gender socialisation, gender roles and gendered identities.
The norms and values associated with traditional femininity are not conducive to crime, while the norms and values associated with traditional masculinity are more likely to lead to crime.
Parsons (1937) argued that, because women carry out the child-rearing role, girls have a clear role model to follow that emphasises nurture and support.
Albert Cohen (1955) similarly argued that delinquency was mainly carried out by males because women have the main role in socialising children- boys therefore lack a male role model within the household- even two parent households- to give them a caring, domestic role to aspire to and to steer them away from crime. Instead boys look to the male gang or subculture which leads them into crime.
From this perspective, female offending can be seen as the outcome of a failure of proper socialisation. In a longitudinal study, Farrington and Painter (2004) uncovered different patterns of socialisation between offenders and non-offenders, with female offenders much more likely to have experienced erratic parenting.
Evaluate sex role theory as an explanation for why women commit less crime.
(-) When asked, women give a wide variety of reasons for their criminality and many reasons are not directly linked to sex-role socialisation- e.g. Caddle and Crisp (cited in Newburn, 2013) interviewed women in prison and found a wide variety of reasons for offending, with the most common one, provided by 55% of women being ‘Having no money’.
(+) However, some commonly given reasons did seem to link to sex roles, e.g. ‘Need to support children’ (38%).
(-) Sex-role theory is less relevant in today’s society because of the decline of traditional gender roles.
Explain the liberationist perspective explanation for why women commit fewer crimes.
Freda Adler (1975) proposed that the emancipation of women and increased economic opportunities for women lead to an increase in the female crime rate. As patriarchal controls weaken and opportunities in work and education have become more equal, women have started to adopt traditionally male behaviours in both legitimate and illegitimate activity.
As a result women are no longer just committing traditionally female crimes such as prostitution and shop lifting but also more typically ‘male’ crimes such as violence and white collar crimes. Adler claimed to have found a cross-national correlation between levels of women’s economic freedoms and their crime levels.
More recently, Denscombe has argued that, because of changing female roles, females are as likely as males to engage in risk taking behaviour. In his research into self image in teenagers in the East Midlands, he found that females were increasingly adopting what had traditionally been male attitudes.
Westwood similarly argues that identities are continually in flux: the concept of a fixed female identity has limited our understanding of crime and we need to consider how women are reconfiguring their identities and the possible link to the growth of female crime.
