Explaining Female Crime Flashcards
What is one of the explanations of gender differences in crime?
It is biological rather than sociological.
What do Lombroso and Ferrero argue?
They argued that criminality is innate but that there were very few ‘born female criminals’.
What have some more recent psychological explanations argued?
Biological factors such as higher levels of testosterone in males can account for gender differences in violent offending.
What three explanations do sociologists use instead of biological explanations?
=> Sex Role Theory.
=> Control Theory.
=> Liberation Thesis.
What trend in official statistics seems to support Adler’s Liberation Thesis?
=> Increase in female arrest and conviction statistics for violent crime.
=> Between 2000-2008, police statistics show number of females arrested for violence rose by an average of 17% each year.
=> If accurate, suggests that females are increasingly committing typically ‘male’ crimes; violent crime has traditionally been a male form of crime.
What did Steffensmeier and Schwartz find?
=> There were inconsistencies between police statistics and the findings of victim surveys.
=> Victims did not report any increase in attacks by females.
=> Self-report studies showed no upward trend in females’ criminality.
What is ‘net widening’?
Arresting and prosecuting offenders for less serious forms of crime.
How do Steffensmeier and Schwartz relate net widening to female crime?
=> Conclude that, despite what official statistics tell us, in reality there has been no change in women’s involvement in violent crime.
=> Argue that the rise in arrests is due to the justice system ‘widening the net’.
What does Chesney-Lind argue?
=> A policy for mandatory arrests for domestic violence has led to a steep rise in the female violence statistics in the USA.
=> When a couple fight, both members are likely to be arrested even though the woman was likely the victim.
=> Females who were previously ignored by the CJS are no finding themselves being labelled as offenders.
What do Sharpe and Gelsthorpe note about net widening policies in the UK?
=> They too are producing a rise in the official stats for females’ violent crime.
=> There is a growing trend towards prosecuting females for low level physical altercations - even in playground fights in some
cases.
What does Young argue is the cause for this increase in convictions of female violence due to net widening?
Labelling.
What does Worrall argue?
In the past, girls’ behaviour was more likely to be seen as a ‘welfare’ issue, whereas it has now been re-labelled as criminality.
What does one argument suggest about the increase in the criminalization of females?
It is a social construction resulting from a moral panic over young women’s behaviour.
What do Burman and Batchelor claim is responsible the increase in the criminalization of females?
They point to media depictions of young women as ‘drunk and disorderly, out of control and looking for fights’.
What did Sharpe find in relation to the increase in the criminalization of females?
=> Professionals such as judges, probation officers and police were influenced by media stereotypes of violent ‘ladettes’.
=> Many believed that girls’ behaviour was rapidly getting worse.
