[5.0] Gender patterns in crime

Question 1

Who does most crime seem to be committed by?

Answer 1

Males.

Question 2

What do official statistics show?

Answer 2

4/5 convicted offenders in England and Wales are male, and by the age of 40, 9% of females have a criminal record whereas 32% of males have one.

Question 3

What questions do official statistics raise?

Answer 3

1. Do women really commit fewer crimes?
2. How can we explain why women commit fewer crimes
3. Why do males commit more crime than females?

Question 4

What do sociologists argue?

Answer 4

Official statistics underestimate the amount of female offending.

Question 5

What is an example of a ‘female crime’?

Answer 5

Shoplifting.

Question 6

What happens if a female criminal is brought to justice?

Answer 6

She is likely to get a more lenient sentence, or less likely to be prosecuted altogether.

Question 7

What does the chivalry thesis suggest?

Answer 7

Male policemen and judges have been socialised to act in a chivalrous way towards women, which results in the criminal justice system being more lenient to female offenders.

Question 8

What did Graham and Bowling find?

Answer 8

They studied 1,721 14-25 year olds and found that although males were more likely to offend, the difference was not as big as reported in the statistics.

Question 9

What did Flood-Page et al find?

Answer 9

1/11 female offenders are cautioned, whereas 1/7 male offenders are.

Question 10

What did Hood find?

Answer 10

Women are 1/3 less likely to be jailed than men, even where the case is similar.

Question 11

What did Farrington and Morris find?

Answer 11

Out of 408 sentencings, women were not sentenced more leniently for comparable offences.

Question 12

What did Buckle and Farrington observe?

Answer 12

Twice as many males shoplift than females, suggesting females are more likely to prosecuted as the official statistics show the numbers as more or less the same.

Question 13

What are two ideas that do not support the chivalry thesis?

Answer 13

1. Women’s lower prosecution rate could be because the crimes they commit are less serious and less likely to go to trial.
2. Women are more likely to show remorse when being tried, which is likely to get them a lesser sentence.

Question 14

What do feminists argue?

Answer 14

That the criminal justice system is biased against women.

Question 15

What does Heindensohn argue?

Answer 15

Courts treat women more harshly when they deviate from gender norms.

Question 16

What do courts punish girls for but not boys?

Answer 16

Premature promiscuous activity.

Question 17

What did Stewart find?

Answer 17

Magistrates’ perceptions of female defendants’ characters were based on stereotypical gender roles.

Question 18

What does Carlen argue about the reasons behind the jailing of women?

Answer 18

Jailing a woman is less about the crime she committed, but more about the court’s assessment of them as mothers and wives.

Question 19

Why do feminists argue that the criminal justice system is patriarchal?

Answer 19

A number of judges have made victim blaming comments during rape trials.

Question 20

What does Walklate argue about rape trials?

Answer 20

It is not the defendant on trial but the victim and their respectability.