5. Gender, crime and justice

Question 1

Gender patterns in crime

Answer 1

Heidensohn + Silvestri: gender differences are the most significant feature of recorded crime. Official stats show that:
- 4/5 convicted offenders in England and wales are male
- by age 40, 9% of females compared to 32% of males have a criminal conviction
- more female than male offenders are convicted of property offences
- more male than female offenders are convicted of violence/sexual offences
- men are 15x more likely to be convicted of homicide

Question 2

Two arguments in support of the idea that stats underestimate the amount of female crime:

Answer 2

1. Typically ‘female’ crimes eg shoplifting, prostitution, are less likely to be reported
2. Even when reported they are less likely to be prosecuted or are let off lightly after prosecution

Question 3

The chivalry thesis

Answer 3

• most criminal justice agents are men who are socialised to act in a chivalrous way towards women
• Pollak: men have a protective attitude towards women and the CJS is more lenient with them which means their crimes are less likely to end up in official stats

Question 4

How do self report studies support the chivalry thesis

Answer 4

• evidence shows that female offenders are treated more leniently
• Flood-Page et al found that while only 1/11 female self reported offenders had been cautioned or prosecuted, this was 1/7 for male self reported offenders

Question 5

How do official statistics support the chivalry thesis

Answer 5

• females are more likely than males to be released on bail rather than remain in custody
• females are more likely than males to get a fine/community service than prison. They also serve less time
• 1/9 female offenders get a prison sentence for shoplifting, compared to 1/5 males

Question 6

Evidence against the chivalry thesis

Answer 6

• Farrington and Morris’ study of the sentencing of 408 offences found that women were not sentenced more leniently
• Box’s review of British and American self report studies concludes that women who commit serious offences aren’t treated more favourably than men

Question 7

How do self report studies provide evidence against the chivalry thesis

Answer 7

They provide evidence that males commit more offences like binge drinking, taking illegal drugs or engaging in disorderly conduct.

Question 8

How does under reporting of male crimes against women provide evidence against the chivalry thesis

Answer 8

• Yearnshire: a woman suffers 35 assaults before reporting domestic violence.
• crimes of the powerful are under represented in self report and victim surveys and these are also more likely to be committed by men
• if women appear to be treated leniently it’s because their offences are less serious and less likely to go to trial

Question 9

Bias against women: Heidensohn

Answer 9

• courts treat females more harshly than males when they deviate from gender norms
  1. Double standards
  Sharpe found that 7/11 girls were referred for support because they were sexually active, compared to 0/44 boys
  2. Women who don’t conform to monogamous heterosexuality and motherhood are punished more harshly. Stewart found that magistrates’ perceptions of female defendants’ characters were based on stereotypical gender roles

Question 10

Bias against women: Carlen

Answer 10

• when women are jailed it’s according to the court assessment of them as wives mothers and daughters rather than the seriousness of the crimes
• girls who’s parents believe them to be beyond control are more likely to be sentenced than girls who live conventional lives
• Carlsen found that Scottish judges were more likely to jail women whose children were in care than women they saw as good mothers

Question 11

Bias against women: feminists, Walklate and Adler

Answer 11

• feminists say that double standards exist because the CJS is patriarchal. For example there are many cases of male judges making victim blaming remarks in rape cases
• Walklare says that I’m rape cases it is the victim rather than the defendant who us on trial since she had to prove her respectability to have her evidence accepted
• Adler: women who are deemed to lack respectability find it hard to have their testimony believed by the court.

Question 12

Functionalist sex role theory: Parsons

Answer 12

• Parsons: women have an expressive role in the home which gives girls an adult role model. Men have an instrumental role outside the home so boys don’t have a role model and reject feminine models of behaviour, replacing it with compensatory, compulsory masculinity. This involves aggression and anti social behaviour which can turn into delinquency.

Question 13

Functionalist sex role theory: Cohen

Answer 13

The lack of an adult male role model means that boys are more likely to turn to all male street gangs

Question 14

Functionalist sex role theory: new right

Answer 14

The absence of a male role model in matrifocal lone parent families leads to boys turning to criminal street gangs for status and identity.

Question 15

Walklate’s criticism of sec role theory

Answer 15

Walklate criticises sex role theory for assuming that because women have the biological capacity to bear children, they are best suited to the expressive role

Question 16

Heidensohn: patriarchal control

Answer 16

Heidensohn says women are conformist and they commit fewer and less serious crimes than men. This is due to the fitness o over women by the patriarchal society which gives them less opportunities to offend.

Question 17

Control at home

Answer 17

• women’s domestic role restricts their time and movement and makes them stay at home, giving them less opportunities to offend
• Dobash and Dobash found that may violent attacks result from men’s dissatisfaction with their wives performance of domestic duties. Men may also exercise financial control over their wives
• Girls can’t go out or stay out as they please so they develop a bedroom culture which gives them less opportunities to offend

Question 18

Control in public

Answer 18

This is through threat or fear of male violence.
- Islington crime survey found 54% of women avoided going out at night due to fear of crime
- Heidensohn says media reporting if rape increases women’s fear
- Lees says in school boys maintain intros through sexualised verbal abuse

Question 19

Control at work

Answer 19

Sexual harassment keeps women in their place. Their subordinate position also reduced their opportunities to be in major criminal activity at work

x Heidensohn says patriarchy can also increase opportunities for crime. For example women are more likely to be poor due to gender inequalities at work and so may turn to crime to survive

Question 20

Carlen: class and gender deals. Method of her experiment

Answer 20

Carlen used unstructured interviews on 39 w/c women aged 15-46 who had been convicted of crimes. 20 were in prison or youth custody during the interviews. Carlen user a version of Hirschi’s control theory to explain female crime

Question 21

Hirschi’s control theory

Answer 21

Hirschi said that humans are rational and are controlled by the offer of a ‘deal’ of rewards in return for conformity to social norms.
- class deal: women who work will have material rewards and a decent standard of living
- gender deal: patriarchal ideology promises women material and emotional rewards from the family by conforming to gender roles
If the rewards aren’t available/ worth the effort, crime is more likely

Question 22

Results of Carlen’s study

Answer 22

In the class deal, the women couldn’t legitimately earn money which left them powerless
- 32 of them had always been in poverty
- the qualifications they got in jail didn’t help them get a job
- many had problems in trying to claim benefits
In the gender deal, many either couldn’t make the deal or had more disadvantages than rewards
- some had been abused by fathers or partners
- time spent in care broke bonds with loved ones
- those who left care were homeless, unemployed and poor
To conclude, poverty and care/bad family life led to their criminality

Question 23

The liberation thesis

Answer 23

Adler created it to explain that as women become liberated from patriarchy, their crimes will become as frequent and serious as men’s crimes. The lessening of patriarchal controls and the increase in women’s opportunities for education and work have allowed them to adopt male roles in legitimate and illegitimate activity eg white collar crime

Question 24

Evidence to support the liberation thesis

Answer 24

• studies show rising levels of female participation in crimes previously regarded as male such as armed robbery
• Denscombe’s study of the self images of teens in the midlands found that females were as likely as males to engage in risk taking behaviour and that girls were adopting more males stances such as the desire to look hard and be in control

Question 25

Criticisms of the liberation thesis

Answer 25

• the female crime rate started rising long before the women’s liberation movement
• Chesney-Lind says in the USA poor and marginalised women are more likely to be criminals than liberated women
• Laidler and Hunt found that female gang members in the USA were expected to conform to conventional gender roles in the same way as non deviant girls

Question 26

Females and violent crime

Answer 26

Hand and Dodd found that between 2000 and 2008, police stats showed the number of females arrested for violence rose by an average of 17% each year

Question 27

The criminalisation of females

Answer 27

• Steffensmeier and Schwartz found that the rise of female arrests wasn’t matched by the findings of victim surveys- victims didn’t report any increase in attacks by females
• the rise in arrests is due to the CJS widening arrests, which is what Young calls defining deviance up
• Worrall argues that girls’ misbehaviour used to be seen as a welfare issue but now it has been re labelled as criminality

Question 28

The moral panic about girls

Answer 28

• the increase in the criminalisation of females may be a social construction caused by a moral panic over their behaviour
• Sharpe found that CJS pros were influenced by media stereotypes of violent ladettes and many believed that girls’ behaviour was worsening
• Steffensmeier et al found that media driven moral panics about girls were affecting sentencing decisions
• the overall effect is a SFP and deviance amplification spiral

Question 29

Gender and victimisation

Answer 29

homicide victims
- 70% are males
- female victims are more likely to know their killer and 60% of the time it’s a partner or ex.
- males are more likely to be killed by a friend or acquaintance
victims of violence
- women are more likely to be victimised by an acquaintance, men by a stranger
- more women than men were victims of intimate violence
- 10x more women than men reported being sexually assaulted
- only 8% of females reported serious sexual assault to the police

Question 30

Mismatch between fear and risk?

Answer 30

• research shows women have more fear of crime but the CSEW shows they’re at less risk of victimisation
• Local victim surveys such as by Lea and Young have found women are at greater risk than men
• victim surveys don’t show the frequency or severity of victimisation
• Walby and Allen have shown that women are more likely to be victims of multiple incidents
• Ansara and Hindin found that women victims experienced more severe violence and control

Question 31

Masculinity and crime

Answer 31

Messerschmidt says masculinity is a social construct or accomplishment that men have to work at constructing and presenting to others

Question 32

Two types of masculinity

Answer 32

1. Hegemonic masculinity
   The dominant prestigious form that most men want to accomplished. Defined through paid work, subordination of women, heterosexism and the uncontrollable sexuality of men
2. Subordinated masculinities
   These include gay men, who don’t want to achieve hegemonic massculinity, and w/c or EM men who lack the resources to do so

Question 33

How does Messerschmidt see crime and deviance as resources different men use to accomplish masculinity

Answer 33

• white m/c youth have an accommodating masculinity in school where they subordinate themselves to teachers. Outside of school they have an oppositional masculinity eg vandalism
• white w/c youths have less chance of educational success so have oppositional masculine inside and outside of school eg sexist attitudes
• black w/c youths may have less chance of a job and may turn to gangs and violence to express their masculinity or property crime for material success
• Messerschmidt says m/c may use white collar crimes for hegemonic masculinity while the poor use street crimes for subordinate masculinity

Question 34

Criticisms of Messerschmidt

Answer 34

• he is in danger of a circular argument that masculinity explains male crimes because they are crimes committed by males
• he doesn’t explain why not all men use crime to accomplish masculinity
• he over works the concept of masculinity to explain virtually all crimes

Question 35

Winlow: postmodernity, masculinity and crime

Answer 35

• globalisation has led to a post modern, de-institutionalised society which has led to less manual jobs through which w/c men can express their masculinity
• this has made the service sector of clubs, pubs and bats expand and has provided a combo of legal and employment, criminal opportunities and a way to express masculinity
• Winlow’s study of bouncers in Sunderland found they had paid work and illegal business in drugs and alcohol as a way to demonstrate masculinity through violence

Question 36

Bodily capital

Answer 36

A criminal subculture has emerged under postmodern conditions, where violence is a commodity with which to earn a living. The men use their bodily capital aka look the part such as by bodybuilding, to discourage competitors. The signs of masculinity act as a commodity in its own right