Crime and Deviance

Question 1

Sylvia Walby

Answer 1

Triple Systems Theory

Question 2

According to Walby, why were women victims of crime?

Answer 2

because of a combination of gender inequalities across all agents of society. There is a matrix of inequality that causes women to become victims.

Question 3

Walby and Sexual violence

Answer 3

Argues that sociologists need to address the issue that women are increasingly becoming victims of violence and sexual assault. Decline of sexual assault convictions helps support this

Question 4

Examples of the matrix of inequalities that Walby discusses

Answer 4

• Women typically earn less than men, which may mean some women end up feeling financially dependent on an abusive partner.
• Women are sexualised by the media, encouraging men to see them as sex objects, not people.
• Far more effort seems to go into teaching women to protect themselves and carrying rape alarms, not walking alone at night etc. This sends a message that women are to blame for violence against women by men.

Question 5

Walby Evaluation

Answer 5

Walby’s theories are very holistic, which is useful in that
they take a wide range of ideas into account when explaining gender inequality. Given the holistic nature of Walby’s theory, it is difficult to know what action to take to protect women as essentially all aspects of society are victimising them

Question 6

Walby and Crime statistics

Answer 6

In 2015, researchers from Lancaster University led by Sylvia Walby reported on data from the CSEW. They estimated that violent crime is 60% higher than official statistics suggest, due to a ruling that a person can only be registered as a victim of violent crime 5x. When this ruling was ignored, there was an estimated increase of violent crime by 70% for women and 50% for men. Walby et al. pointed out that the CSEW does not separate violent crime by gender or domestic relationship, thus the amount of domestic violence is underestimated.

Question 7

Frances Heidensohn (1985)

Answer 7

Social Control Theory

Question 8

What did Heidensohn believe was the theme in female criminality?

Answer 8

women commit fewer crimes than men and that this is the result of patriarchal control of women, who have fewer opportunities and incentives to offend.

Question 9

In what ways are women controlled according to Heidensohn

Answer 9

• Domestic control: Women are controlled in their own
  homes because they have less freedom.
  -Control in public spaces: Women are constrained by a
  fear of sexual violence, or if not, being seen as
  respectable.
• Employment control: Women are less likely to be in high
  positions of responsibility. They have little opportunity for middle-class crime such as
  fraud

Question 10

Heidensohn and doubly deviant (1996)

Answer 10

Heidensohn (1996) argues that courts treat females more harshly than males when they deviate from gender
norms. women who do not conform to accepted standards of monogamous heterosexuality and motherhood are punished more harshly.

Question 11

Heidensohn evaluation

Answer 11

• Adler’s liberation thesis suggests girls enjoy far more freedom in society today
  and we are seeing an increase in female crime rates.

Question 12

Carlen (1988)

Answer 12

Followed on from Heidensohn in questioning the reasons women are less likely to commit crime than men. However, she questioned why the majority of serious female offenders appeared to be working-class.
Class and Gender Deal Theory

Question 13

How was Carlen’s 1988 study carried out?

Answer 13

• unstructured interviews that she tape-recorded
• a study of 39 15-46-year-old working-class women who had been convicted of a range of crimes including theft, fraud, prostitution, drugs, burglary, handling stolen goods, violence and arson.

Question 14

What did Pat Carlen’s 1988 study find?

Answer 14

• working-class women are generally led to conform through the promise of two types of rewards or ‘deals.’
• If these rewards are not available or worth the effort, crimes become more likely. Carlen argued that this was the case with the women in her study.

Question 15

What 2 deals were Carlen referring to ?

Answer 15

The Class deal and the gender deal

Question 16

What is the Gender Deal ( Carlen) ?

Answer 16

The gender deal: patriarchal ideology promises women material and emotional rewards from family life by conforming to the norms of a conventional domestic gender role.

Question 17

The Class Deal ( Pat Carlen)

Answer 17

The class deal: women who work will be offered material rewards, with a decent standard of living and leisure opportunities.

Question 18

Relationship between women and the courts according to Pat Carlen

Answer 18

• when women are given a custodial sentence, it is less for the seriousness of their crimes and more according to the court’s assessment of them as wives, mothers and daughters.
• Girls whose parents believe them to be beyond control are more likely to be given a custodial sentence. Likewise, judges were more likely to jail women whose children were in care than women who they saw as good mothers.

Question 19

Evaluation of Pat Carlen

Answer 19

• Feminists like Carlen, Heidensohn and Smart offer a
  challenge to Otto Pollak’s chivalry thesis notion that
  women are always treated leniently in courts.
• Carlen’s sample was small and may be unrepresentative as it consisted of working-class and serious offenders.

Question 20

Freda Adler (1975)

Answer 20

The Liberation Thesis

Question 21

What did The Liberation Thesis put forward by Adler entail?

Answer 21

Adler argued that, as women become liberated from patriarchy, their crimes will become as frequent and as serious as men’s. Women’s liberation has led to a new type of female criminal and rise in female crime rates.

Question 22

Why does Adler think that women’s attitudes have changed?

Answer 22

• changes in the structure of society have led to changes in women’s offending behaviour. women no longer just commit traditional ‘female’ crimes such as shoplifting and prostitution. They now also commit typically ‘male’ offences such as crimes of violence and white-collar crimes.
• women’s greater self-confidence and assertiveness,
  and the fact that they now have greater opportunities in the legitimate structure. EG there are more women in senior positions at work and this gives them the opportunity to commit white-collar crimes

Question 23

Adler Evaluation

Answer 23

• Arrest rates and conviction rates for women were significantly higher by the 90s than they were in the 50s.
• Most female offenders are working-class – the group least likely to be influenced by women’s liberation.

Question 24

Angela Mcrobbie (1976)

Answer 24

Bedroom culture

Invisible Girl

Question 25

How can Angela McRobbie’s comments on youth culture link to deviance?

Answer 25

McRobbie and Garber (1976) comment that the place of young women in youth culture reflects their general position in society. Although they are present in all youth subcultures, they are pushed to the margins of this largely male social activity. This could be linked to deviance as women are seen to be invisible in this aspect of life and are thus less likely to engage in deviant activities unlike their male counterparts

Question 26

Angela McRobbie Evaluation

Answer 26

McRobbie (1994) acknowledged that girls had far more of a presence in rave culture – so they are not invisible in all youth subcultures, rave culture is notorious for drug use and dealing

Question 27

Carolyn Jackson (2006)

Answer 27

Lads and Ladettes in School

Question 28

What did Jackson conclude following her 2006 research on the growing culture of ‘ladettes’ among girls in schools

Answer 28

According to Jackson, laddish behaviour can have important advantages from the perspective of many boys and girls:
- it makes them appear ‘cool’ if they have a laugh and mess around in class.
- there is so much academic pressure due to teachers’
concerns about their school’s league table that there is a fear of failure and of being regarded as stupid. Being laddish allows pupils to appear workshy and unconcerned with failure. If they do succeed, they are seen to be ‘a genius’ because they have apparently done so without doing any work.

Question 29

How does Carolyn Jackson’s beliefs around ladettes link to deviance?

Answer 29

A new feminine identity known as the laddette movement has emerged. Laddette’s are girls who take on traditionally male characteristics (boisterous, binge drinking) and are seen as a problem for society. This suggests some girls are taking a more active role in deviant subcultures than feminists like McRobbie found in the 1970s.

Question 30

Carolyn Jackson evaluation

Answer 30

Helpful, as it’ s a contemporary study that explores how gender roles have changed since the 1970s.

Question 31

Debbie Archer (1998)

Answer 31

Debbie Archer (1998) studied a rising phenomenon –
girl gangs. Most research into girl gangs is from the
USA, Archer pointed out the lack of research into girl
gangs in the UK but claimed that the numbers of girls
involved in such gang-related criminal activities are
growing.

Question 32

What was Debbie Archer’s 1998 study called?

Answer 32

‘Riot GRRL and raisin girls: Femininity within the female gang – the power of the popular.’

Question 33

What research methods did Debbie Archer use?

Answer 33

Archer drew on secondary research in order to support her findings. She looked at existing literature as well as interview transcripts from the police and from journalists who had personally interacted with girls from gangs

Question 34

What similarities did Debbie Archer find in her 1998 study between male and female crime?

Answer 34

These ‘raisin’ or gang girls are defying the standard norms and conventions in a similar way to those male delinquents who were the subjects of delinquency studies in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. The self empowerment of women through subcultural styles might arguably have begun with punk, which was the precursor to hip hop.

Question 35

What was Archer’s analysis on girl gans?

Answer 35

• In the same way the gangs studied by the CCCS were resisting capitalist inequality, girl gangs can be seen to
  be resisting the traditional female gender roles found within a patriarchal society.
  Conclusions: Archer sees girls as taking an active role in criminal activity and in youth cultures. Girls are not socially controlled in the ways explored by earlier feminist work such as McRobbie’s bedroom culture.

Question 36

Debbie Archer evaluation

Answer 36

• Archer has researched something that sociologists and criminologists have failed to gather much literature on. Her paper allows us to access a range of information about girl gangs in the UK
• Her findings are based on secondary research. Archer never interacted with girls in gangs herself. She is relying on the information she could access from newspapers, journalists and police officers. Many of the information the police provided her with were limited to how much the officer she spoke with could recall. The newspaper information would have been sensationalised. Archer’s findings may not all be authentic