Crime and Deviance - Gender, Crime and Justice Flashcards
Heidensohn and Silvestri (2012) and gender and crime:
Gender differences are the most stark among demographics in crime statistics:
- 80% of convicted felons in England and Wales are male
- By the age of 40, more than 4x as many men than women have criminal convictions
Aside from overall criminality, give some other gender differences in offending?
- Women are more likely than men to be convicted of property crimes, whereas men are more likely to be convicted of violence of sexual offences
- Men are more likely to be repeat offenders, have long criminal careers and commit more serious crimes, like murder (15x)
What is the Chivalry thesis?
Pollak (1950): most criminal justice agents are men who are socialised to be ‘chivalrous’ or protective towards women, so are more likely to be more lenient with them, so their crimes not being in official statistics.
Graham and Bowling (1995) and chivalry thesis:
According to their self report survey, men are actually 2.33x as likely to commit a crime, rather than official statistics reporting 4x.
Buckle and Farrington (1984) and shoplifting:
In their small-scale observational study of a department store, men actually shoplifted 2x as much as women - despite official statistics placing them as equal.
How does the chivalry thesis neglect reporting?
It focusses on how women’s crime is underreported and ignores how men’s crime is the same. Only 8% of female sexual assault victims report it to the police and Yearnshire (1997) found that women only report after 35 assaults.
Heidensohn (1996) and bias:
The courts actually treat women more harshly than men when they deviate from gender norms, this takes 2 forms:
- Double standards; courts punish ‘wayward’ girls for promiscuity but not boys
- Punishment for not aligning with gender roles
Carlen (1997) and custodial sentences:
Women are jailed, not based on the severity of their crimes, but based on ‘the court’s assessment of them as wives mothers and daughters.’ Scottish judges were more likely to jail women with children in care.
Walklate (1998) and rape:
This bias is no more evident than in rape cases. Walklate argues that in these cases, it is not the defendant but the victim who is on trial and has to prove their respectability and innocence to have evidence accepted.
What are the main four explanations of female crime:
- Parsons (1955): functionalist sex role theory
- Heidensohn (1996): patriarchal control
- Carlen (1988): class and gender deals
- Adler (1975): liberation thesis
Parsons (1955) and functionalist sex role theory:
Men commit more crimes due to gender roles in the family: men take an instrumental role and are away from the house more so provide their sons with less of a role model; these boys reject their mothers models of behaviour of tenderness and emotion as feminine and act out in ‘compensatory compulsory masculinity’ through aggression that can slip into delinquency.
What group agrees with functionalist sex role theory?
The New Right also sees mothers as incapable of properly socialising men causing them to become criminals.
Walklate (2003) and functionalist sex role theory:
Although Parsons attempts to focus on social roles, his theory is based in the biological assumption that, because women are capable of childbearing, they are best suited to the expressive role of raising children.
Give evidence against functionalist sex role theory
Single mother families have fluctuated wildly since 1990 but crime has steadily gone down (CSEW finds it has fallen 90% in 30 years).
Heidensohn (1996) and patriarchal control:
Women commit fewer and less serious crimes becuase of the level of control society imposes upon them; in the home, in public, and at work.
How are women controlled at home and how does this affect crime?
Wives have sever restrictions on their time due to their greater number of duties at home. Young girls are also not allowed to leave the house as much and are given more housework, leading them to develop a ‘bedroom culture’. Both have less opportunity for crime.
How are women controlled in public and how does this affect crime?
Women are controlled in public by fear of male violence, which often keeps them indoors where it is considered safer, the Islington Crime Survey found that women are 4x more likely to avoid going out after dark out of fear of victimisation. They also have a fear of not being seen as respectable, leading them to avoid ‘unrespectable areas’ such as pubs where crime is more likely to occur.
How are women controlled at work and how does this affect crime?
Due to the glass ceiling, women are kept out of positions in which the can commit major white collar crime like embezzeling.
Give a counterargument to Heidensohn (1996)
Heidensohn also recognises how patriarchy can push women into crime: poverty as a result of gender inequalities, custody arrangements, and the glass ceiling may cause women to turn women to turn to utilitarian crime. Theft is 38% of crime women are prosecuted for.
Hirschi (1969) and deals:
Hirschi acts as the precursor to Carlen (1988), arging that humans act rationally based of the rewards of ‘deals’ of different types of social conformity, with people turning to crime if the rewards are scarce.
Carlen (1988) and class deals:
Carlen argues that w/c women, who she sees as the majority of female offenders, are given 2 deals, the first is the class deal: work to gain material rewards. The ‘material rewards’ are scarce for w/c women, 80% of women Carlen interviewed had always been in poverty and many struggled to find a job after prison or felt shame claiming benefits.
Carlen (1988) and gender deals:
The second deal w/c women are offered is the gender deal: be a conventional housewife to gain material and emotional rewards, according to patriarchy. Many w/c women did not have the opportunity to make such deals, >50% having been in care so losing bonds with family and friends, or saw no benefit, some had been abused by their fathers or by partners.
Carlen (1988) and the culmination of class and gender deals:
For the women who had denied or had been denied their class and gender deals, ‘crime was the only route to a decent standard of living. They had noting to lose and everything to gain.’
Give a criticism of Carlen (1988).
Carlen’s sample was incredibly small, at only 39 people. However, this can be considered necessary as, in order to gain a deep understanding of something like the relation between someone’s childhood or domestic abuse and their crimes, one must develop a significant rapport.
Adler (1976) and the liberation thesis:
As society has become more equal, via things like the Sex Discrimination Act, women begin to adopt traditionally male roles in both legtimiate (work) and illegitimate (crime) activities; as such, as time goes on, we will see women’s crimes becoming more serious and frequent. This is because women now have greater self confidence and assertivness supplied by their work, as well as opportunity to commit more crime, such as 13% of billionaires now being women means more female white collar crime.
Give two criticisms of Adler (1975):
- Female crime rate began to rise in the 50’s, almost 20 years before the women’s liberation movement
- Chesney-Lind (1997): w/c women are the most likely to commit crime but are the least likely to be affected by women’s liberation.
Hand and Dodd (2009) and female arrest rate:
Police stats show that female arrests for violence rose by 17% each year for the 8 years prior.
Steffensmeier and Schwartz (2009) and criminalisation:
Although female arrests for violence grew by 66%, victim surveys showed no significant changes. They argue that, rather than an increase in female offending, the police have engaged in ‘net widening’.
Chesney-Lind (2006) and domestic violence:
The mandatory arrest policy for domestic violence in the US has led to a teep increase in female arrests for violence as, even if the woman is likely to be the victim, both parties are arrested.
Burnam and Batchelor (2009) and explaining female criminality:
The reason that women are now being included in the ‘criminality net’ is due to a moral panic about women’s behaviour. They point to media depictions of women as ‘drunk and disorderly, out of control and looking for fights’.
Sharpe (2009) and ladettes:
Members of the criminal justice system are increasingly being influenced by the media’s depictions of ‘ladettes’, leading them to give girls harsher sentences than previously.
CSEW (2012) and gender and homicide victimisation stats:
- 70% of victims are male, more likely to be killed by a friend or acquaintace.
- Women are more likely to know their killer, 60% of which being a partner or ex-partner.
CSEW (2012) and gender and violence victimisation stats:
- Half as many women are victims of violence (4% v 2%)
- Half as many men were victims of intimate violence in their life (31% V 18%)
- 10x more women report having been sexually assaulted than men
How can the CSEW’s reporting on gender victimisation not be considered entirely valid?
Sparks et al (1997): female victims are more likely to refuse interview
What is the feminist perspective on most traditional criminology?
Although most criminological studies have been of men, very few have linked criminality to masculinity and asked what it is about being male that leads to crime, despite committing the vast majority.
Messerschmidt (1993) and hegemonic masculinity:
In society there are multiple types of masculinity; however, ‘hegemonic masculinity’ is the type that all men try to ‘achieve’ even if they have a ‘subordinated masculinity’, such as being gay or an ethnic minority. Crime is a way for men to accomplish masculinity, with class and ethnic differences leading to different forms of rule breaking.
Messerschmidt (1993) and the three forms of rule breaking:
- White m/c boys have to have an ‘accomodating masculinity’ in school to achieve, leading them to act out outside of school
- White w/c boys have little opportunity to achieve so behave in oppositional manners in and out of school, such as Willis’ (1977) lads.
- Black w/c boys may use gang membership and violence to express their masculinity
Give a criticism of Masserschmidt (1993).
Doesn’t explain why not all men use crime to accomplish masculinity.
How does postmodernity link to male crime?
Traditional masculine job opportunities have disappeared and been replaced by an expanding service sector such as clubs and pubs, providing men with legal employment, lucrative criminal opportunity and a means of expressing masculinity.
Winlow (2001) and bouncers:
Winlow notes the postmodern explanantion of male crime for bouncers in Sunderland: bouncers gain steady pay, opportunities to branch into criminality such as drugs and protection rackets and demonstrate masculinity via violence.
Winlow (2001) and bodily capital:
The night-time economy creates an organised professional criminal subculture where violence is not just a way to show off masculinity but a commodity to be sold, also called bodily capital. Winlow notes how it isn’t fully about doing violence, as much as maintaining the sign value of their bodies to discourage competitors challenges.
How is Winlow (2001) important?
It shows how the expression of masculinity changes with the move from a modern industrial society to a postmodern, de-industrialised one.
