Explaining Female Crime

Question 1

What is the functionalist sex role theory?

Answer 1

• Boys are encouraged to be tough and aggressive, thus more disposed to commit criminal acts and take up criminal opportunities
• Parsons (1955): there are differences in crime and deviance to the gender roles in the conventional nuclear family
• Girls, raised by the mother, have a role model
• Boys then reject feminine models of behaviour that express gentleness and emotion and then engage in ‘compensatory compulsory masculinity’
• Cohen (1955): lack of an adult male role model means boys are more likely to turn to all male street gangs as a source of masculine identity

Question 2

Criticisms of the sex role theory:

Answer 2

• Walklate: Parsons assumes that because women have the biological capacity to bear children, they are best suited to the expressive role

Question 3

What are the 2 main feminist approaches?

Answer 3

1. control theory

2. the liberation thesis

Question 4

Heidensohn: patriarchal control

Answer 4

• Women commit less crime than men due to being conformist and having less opportunity
• Control at home: women’s domestic role imposes severe restrictions on their time and movement. Dobash and Dobash (1979): much domestic abuse stems from men’s dissatisfaction with their wives’ performance of domestic duties
• Control in public: Islington Crime Survey- 54% of women avoided going out after dark for fear of being victims of crime, as against only 14% of men. The media portrays the typical racist as a stranger who carries out attacks. Also controlled in public through fear of not being respected: dress, make-up, demeanour… Lees (1993): girls called slags if they fail to conform
• Control at work: Women’s behaviour at work is controlled by male supervisors and managers. Their subordinate position reduces their opportunity to commit any major criminal activity (the glass ceiling)

Question 5

Carlen: class and gender deals

Answer 5

• Carlen (1998) study of 39 15-46 y/o w/c women who were convicted of crime
• Argues that most convicted serious female criminals are working class
• Uses a version of Hirschi’s control theory (humans act rationally and are controlled by being offered a deal. In this deal there are rewards for conforming)
• Carlen: there are 2 types of rewards.
  1. The class deal: material rewards for those who work, a decent standard of living and leisure opportunities
  2. The gender deal: patriarchal ideology promises women material and emotional rewards from family life… must conform to norms of a conventional domestic gender role
• Women who failed to find a legitimate source of income were left powerless, oppressed and victims of injustice (class deal)
• Most women hadn’t been able to make the gender deal, or saw few rewards and many disadvantages (gender deal)

Question 6

Evaluation of Hiedensohn and Carlen

Answer 6

• Both can be accused of seeing women’s behaviour as determined by external forces such as patriarchal controls, class and gender deals
• Carlen’s sample was small and unrepresentative

Question 7

The Liberation Thesis (Adler)

Answer 7

• As women become liberated from patriarchy, their crimes will become as frequent and as serious as men’s
• Changes in society have contributed to this new behaviour: such as less discrimination, more education opportunities and more women taking on male roles
• Evidence: The overall rate of offending and the female share of offences rose during the 2nd 1/2 of the 20th century. Rising level of women committing ‘male’ crimes. Denscombe (2001): increase of girl gangs

Question 8

What are the criticisms of the Liberation Thesis?

Answer 8

1. Crime rate began increasing in the 50’s but the women’s liberation movement was the late 60’s
2. The lower the class you are the less likely you are to be influenced by women’s liberation: but most females who commit crime are w/c
3. Crime to do with drugs is usually because of their link with prostitution
4. Laidler and Hunt (2001): female gang members in the US were expected to conform to conventional gender roles like non-deviant girls

Question 9

The criminalisation of females

Answer 9

• Steffensmeier and Schwartz (2009): while the femal share of arrests grew from 1/5 to 1/3 between 1980 and 2003, this rise in the police statistics wasn’t matched by the findings of victim surveys
• They argue that there’s been no change in women’s involvement in violent crime, but the justice system is ‘widening the net’- arresting and prosecuting females for less serious crimes

Question 10

A moral panic about girls?

Answer 10

• Increasing female crime may be a social construction stemming from a moral panic over young women’s behaviour
• Sharpe: professionals such as judges, probation officers and police are influenced the the media’s stereotypes of ‘ladettes’

Question 11

Gender and victimisation

Answer 11

• Homicide victims: About 70% are male. Female victims are more likely to know their killer and in 60% of these cases it was a partner or ex-partner (CSEW, 2012)
• Victims of violence: Fewer women than men are victims of violence, including:
  1. Women are most likely to be victimised by an acquaintance, men by a stranger
  2. More women than man experience domestic abuse (31% vs 18%)