Gender and Crime

Question 1

Official statistics

Answer 1

• ⅘ convicted offenders are male
• By age of 40, 9% of women have had criminal conviction, against 32% of men
• Females are more likely to be convicted for property offences
• Man are more likely to be convicted of violent/sexual crime
• Men are more likely to be repeat offenders = career in crime

Question 2

Chivalry thesis

Answer 2

POLLAK - idea that women are treated more leniently by police and courts who are mainly made up by men who have been socialised to be chivalrous to women ‘sad not bad’

Question 3

Functionalist sex role theory

Answer 3

PARSONS - due to their biology and the process of socialisation, women are nurtured by nature and therefore are incapable/do not want to commit crime

Question 4

Liberation thesis

Answer 4

ADLER - women are now becoming much more equal in society with men, therefore they now commit more/as much crime as them

Question 5

Patriarchal control

Answer 5

HEIDENSOHN- women have at least one male figure in their life who does not want them to commit crime / restricts them from committing crime

Question 6

Class and Gender deals

Answer 6

CARLEN - wwomen are expected to conform

1. Class deal - financially rewarded if they work hard - material gains
2. Gender deal - if they’re a good mother/wife, they will be treated well - financial security from their husband

When both these deals break down, women turn to crime

Question 7

MESSERSCHMIDT: masculinity and crime

Answer 7

masculinity is an accomplishment that men work at constructing + presenting
Hegemonic masculinity
Sees crime and deviance as a resource that differently men may use to accomplish masculinity

Evaluation: does not explain why men commit ‘non-masculine’ crime e.g. tax evasion
Masculinity is more flexible nowadays

Question 8

WINLOW: globalisation & crime

Answer 8

argues that globalisation had led to a decline in traditional manual jobs
In which w/c males can express their masculinity through

However, there’s been an increase in night-time leisure (strip clubs, night clubs - bouncers = opportunities for drinking = fights/violence) providing legal employment and criminal opportunities to express masculinity.

Evaluation- doesn’t explain why most men in feminine jobs don’t commit crime,
focuses too much on w/c crime