Blog

Gender, crime and justice

Gender Patterns in crime

  • Most crime appears to be committed by men, with 4 out 5 convicted criminals being men.
  • Among the offenders, a higher proportion of women are more convicted for property offences (except burglary), whilst a higher proportion of men are convicted of violent or sexual offences, males are much more likely to commit serious crimes.

Do Women commit less crime?

  • Some sociologists argue the statistics underestimate the real rate of female crime for two reasons:
    • Female crimes are less likely to be reported e.g. women’s shoplifting is less likely to be reported in comparison for men’s violence.
    • Even when women’s crimes are reported, they are less likely to eb prosecuted.

The chivalry thesis

  • The idea that women are less likely to prosecuted for their crimes is the chivalry thesis.
    • This argues that the Criminal Justice System (CJS) is more lenient to women than men, this is because its agents police officers, judges, juries etc. – are men, who are socialised to act ‘chivalrous’ toward women.
  • Pollak argues that men have a protective attitude toward women, so they are unwilling to arrest, charge, prosecute or convict them. Their crimes are less likely to end up in the official statistics, giving an invalid picture that under-represents female crime.

Evidence of the Chivalry thesis

  • Self-report studies suggest female offenders get off more leniently
    • Graham and Bowling found young males were 2.33 times more likely than female to admit to have committed a crime in the previous year  – whereas the official statistics show males four times as likely to offend.
    • Compared to men women are more likely to be let off with a caution than prosecuted.
    • Hoods study of over 3,000 defendants found that women were 1/3 less likely to be jailed for similar cases.
  • Official statistics show females are more likely to receive a fine and less likely to be sent to prison.

Evidence against the chivalry thesis

  • Farringdon and Morris found women were not sentenced more leniently for comparable offences.
  • Box’s review of self report studies show that women who commit serious offences are not treated more favourably than men.
  • Buckle and Farrington witnessed twice as many males shoplifting than females – yet statistics show their roughly similar so females are more likely to be prosecuted.
  • Self-report studies show men commit more offences, the more serious the crime the greater the gap
  • Male crime goes unreported e.g. rape and crimes of the powerful go unreported (mainly men)

Bias against women

  • Feminists argue that the CJS isn’t biased in favour of women as the chivalry thesis claims but is biased against them.
    • They argue the CJS treats women more harshly, especially where they deviate from the gender norms in society (monogamous marriage and motherhood)
    • Heidensohn notes the double standards of the courts in punishing girls, but not bos, for promiscuous sexual behaviour.
    • Carlen found Scottish courts were much more likely to give women jail time when their child was in care than for women who are good mothers.
    • Walklate argues that in rape cases the victim who is on trail since she has to prove her respectability in order to have her evidence accepted.

Explaining Female Crime

Women, overall commit less crime than men, there are three explanations for the behaviour of women who do offend, sex role theory, control theory and liberation thesis.

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 preform the expressive role, including the responsibility for socialisation. This gives girls and adult male role model, but boys reject feminine models of behaviour that express tenderness, gentleness and emotion.
    • Instead, boys distance themselves by engaging in ‘compensatory compulsory masculinity’ – risk taking, aggression and anti-school behaviour.
    • Men take the instrumental role, performed largely outside the house, this also makes socialisation more difficult for boys.
    • According to A.K. Cohen the absence of a male role model in the home means boys are more likely to turn to all-male street gangs as a source of masculine identity. Here, they earn status by committing acts of delinquency.
    • Similarly, right realists argue the absence of a male role model in matrifocal lone-parent families leads o boys delinquency.

Heidensohn: patriarchal control

  • She argues that women commit less crime than men due to the greater levels of patriarchal control on women, reducing their opportunities to offend. Patriarchal control operates at home, in public and at work.

Control at home

  • Women’s domestic role, with its constant housework and childcare imposes severe restrictions on their time and movement confines them to the house for long periods, reducing their opportunities to offend.
  • Men are able to impose this role to women e.g. through threat of domestic violence and financial control.
  • This control is also omitted to daughters, with restrictions on going out or staying out late, instead they develop a ‘bedroom culture’, socialising at home with friends rather than in public spaces. Girls are also required to do more housework, which also limits their opportunities to engage in deviant behaviour on the streets.

Control in Public

  • Women are controlled in public places by the fear of male sexual violence. Media reporting of rapes helps to frighten hem into staying at home.
  • Females are also controlled in public by the fear of being defined as not respectable. Dress, make-up, ways of acting etc, defined as inappropriate can gain women a ‘reputation’. Women on their own may not want to enter pubs – which are sites of criminal behaviour – for fear of being regarded as sexually ‘loose’.

Control at work

  • Women’s subordinate position at work reduces criminal opportunities. The ‘glass ceiling’ prevents women rising to senior positions where there are more opportunities for white-collar crime.

Carlen: class and gender crime

  • Carlen studies 39 Working-Class women who had been convicted of a range of crimes, twenty were in prison or youth custody, Carlen argues that most convicted serious female criminals are working-class

Hirschi’s control theory

  • Carlen uses Hirschi’s control theory to explain female crime
    • Hirschi argues that human act rationally and are controlled by being offered a ‘deal’: rewards for conforming to norms.
    • People commit crime if they don’t believe that will get the rewards, or if the rewards of crime appear greater than the risks.
  • Carlen argues tat working class women are generally led to conform through the promise of ‘two deals’
  • The class deal – Women who work will get a decent standard of living
  • The gender deal – Women who conform to the conventional domestic gender role will gain the material and emotional rewards of family life.
    • In terms of the class deal, the women in Carlen’s study had failed to find a legitimate way of earning a decent living. Most had always been in poverty; many couldn’t get a job and had experience problems claiming benefits.
    • In terms of the gender dfeal, some had been abused by their fathers or partners. Over half had spent time in care, which broke family bonds.
    • As they had gained nothing from either deal, they felt they had nothing to lose by using crime to escape from poverty.

Liberation Thesis

  • Adler claims as women become free from patriarchy, their offending rates will increase:
    • As a result of patriarchy and discrimination lessening, women are beginning to adopt men’s roles in both legitimate and illegitimate spheres and their rate of offending has risen.
    • Women no longer just commit traditional female crime (shoplifting and prostitution) and have begun achieving more senior positions at work, living them the opportunity to commit more white collar crime.

 

Females and violent crime

  • There has been a rise in women committed more serious crime, supporting the liberation thesis.
    • However, other evidence suggests there has been no change in women’s involvement in violent crime.
  • In the USA, Steffensmeier and Schwartz found the increase in the official statistics wasn’t matched by the findings of victim surveys or self-report studies.
  • Not Widening they argue that the increase is due to the justice system ‘widening the net’ – prosecuting females for less violence than earlier,
    • Sharpe and Gelsthorpe note a trend in the UK toward prosecuting females for minor offences
    • There is trend toward what Jock and Young class ‘defining deviance up’ to catch trivial offences in the net.
    • 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.
    • The increase in female convictions may be media inspired moral panic about young women being ‘out of control’. Sharpe found that CJS professionals were influenced by media stereotypes of violent ‘ladettes’.
    • This creates an amplification spiral: reports of girls misbehaviour sensitise police and courts, who take a tougher stance, resulting in more convictions, thus producing further negative media coverage.

Gender and victimisation

  • Victim surveys such as the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) show gender differences in victimisation and in the relationship between victim and offender.
    • More men than women are victims of violence and homicide, but more women than men are victims of intimate violence.
    • Ten times more women reported having been sexually assaulted, but only 8% of females who have been assaulted have gone to the police.
    • Women have a greater fear of crime but the CSEW shows they are at less risk. However, some local surveys have found women are at greater risk.

Why do Men commit crime

  • Evidence suggests that most offenders are men, what is it about being mael that increases the likelihood of offending?

Messerschmidt: accomplishing masculinity

  • Messerschmidt argues that masculinity is an ‘accomplishment’ – something men have to constantly work at constructing and presenting to others, and in doing so men have more resources than others.
    • Hegemonic Masculinity is the one all men strive for, defined through paid work, the ability to subordinate women (at home and work) and heterosexuality.
    • Subordinated masculinities – some men including many working class and ethnic minorities, alck the resources to accomplish hegemonic masculinity and so turn to crime. However, Messerschmidt notes that some middle-class men also use crime to achieve hegemonic masculinity, usually through white collar or corporate crime.