Women and Crime Flashcards
Do women commit less crime?…
According to the sex-role theory they do.
Gender socialization encourages women to adopt feminine characteristics such as being more emotional, less competitive, less tough and aggressive, and more averse to taking risks than men. Women’s traditional roles involve being wives, mothers, housewives (and often workers). These combine to make many women both more afraid of the risk-taking involved in crime, as well as giving them fewer opportunities than men to commit crime
Functionalists…
Functionalist Talcott Parsons traces differences in crime and deviance to the gender roles in the traditional nuclear family. While men take the instrumental role, preformed largely outside the home, women perform the expressive role in the home where they take main responsibility for socializing children.
Whilst this gives girls access to a role model it tends to mean that boys reject feminine models of behaviour that express tenderness or emotion. Instead boys tend to distance themselves by engaging in “Compensatory Compulsory Masculinity” through anti social and deviant behaviour.
Why men turn to street violence and not women…
Cohen suggests that the lack of a role model means that boys turn to street gangs as a source of male identity, where status is earned through toughness and aggression.
Heidensohn & Carlen back this theory up by suggesting that females have more to lose if they turn to crime. Their socialisation means that their central role as ‘Guardians of Domestic Morality’ carries with it an expectation to set a good example and to not take risks.
Chivalry thesis…
Anderson (1976) suggests that the Criminal Justice System is ‘Paternalistic’ and as such has a stereotypical view of females as helpless and naïve. As such the CJS is more likely to treat females more leniently than men and let them off for offences.
Women are consistently treated more leniently by the law (e.g.first offenders about half as likely to be given a sentence of immediate imprisonment as their male counterparts). for example according to the ministry of Justice (2009) 49% of women recorded as offending received a caution where as for men it was only 30%. Hood (1992) study over 3000 defendants and fund that women were 1/3 less likely to be jailed for a similar offence to a man.
More evidence…
Female offenders are generally regarded by the police as a less serious threat than men, and are therefore more likely to benefit from more informal approaches to their offences, such as cautions or warnings rather than being charged (this is partly because they generally commit more minor offences like shoplifting, and they are more likely to admit their offences, which is necessary before the police can issue a caution).
Pollak suggest that men are raised to be respectful and courteous to women so are more likely to treat them with leniency, however women are also much more subversive due to biology and therefore are better at hiding their crimes.
Flood and Page found that women who admitted to their crime and showed remorse were less likely to be charged then men in the same situation.
Campbell conducted a self study report and found that women were more likely to be cautioned then charged and that the ratio of male to female juvenile offending was more likely 1.33 boys: 1 girl then the official figure of 1 girl for every: 8.95 boys.
Social control and rational choice…
Carlen (1988): Conducted unstructured interviews with 39 convicted female offenders. She found that women were are encouraged to conform to:
> The class deal: The material rewards that arise from working in paid employment, enabling women to purchase things like consumer goods and enjoy a respectable life and home.
> The gender deal: The rewards that arise from fulfilling their roles in the family and home, with material and emotional support from a male breadwinner.
> Most women accept and achieve these deals and the rewards and security arising from them, and therefore conform and do not commit crime. However, the rewards arising from the class or gender deals are not available to some women, due to poverty, unemployment, abusive partners etc. Such women may then make a rational decision to choose crime as it offers the possibilities of benefits like money, food and consumer goods which are not otherwise available.
Patriarchy imposing control…
Heidensohn: Patriarchal society imposes greater control over women, reducing opportunities to offend.
This patriarchal control operates in:
The private domestic sphere: Responsibilities for domestic labour and childcare provide less time and opportunity for crime and women face more serious consequences if they do become involved. Teenage girls are likely to be more closely supervised by their parents than boys, reducing their chances of getting into trouble.
The public sphere: Women are faced with controls arising from fear of physical or sexual violence if they go out alone at night. Women also face the threat of losing their reputation of being ‘respectable’ if they engage in deviance, for example through gossip, the application of labels like ‘slag’ or ‘slapper’ by men etc.
The workplace: Women are often subject to sexual harassment and supervision by male bosses which restricts their opportunities to deviate. Plus, women’s subordinate position (e.g. glass ceiling), prevents women from rising to senior positions where there is greater opportunity to commit fraud etc.
These cause women to conform as they have a greater risk of losing if they don’t.
Increase in women offending…
Although women do commit less crime than other genders the amount of crime that women are committing is on the increase.
Liberation…
Adler (1975): argues that as changes in the structure of society have led to changes in women’s offending behaviour. 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.
Ladette culture…
Denscombe (2001): uses the phrase ‘Ladette’ to describe females who are taking on more typical male characteristics and as a result are more likely to take risks, disrespect authority and engage in drinking and violence. ‘Ladette Culture’ has become somewhat of a moral panic lately.
Women are assert their identity through binge drinking, gang culture, risk-taking, being hard and in control, and peer-related violence etc. There is some evidence that the police are now reacting in a more serious way, taking more action and prosecuting girls involved in such behaviour rather than dealing with it informally by other means, which would increase the statistics for such offences.
