Gender and crime Flashcards
What do Heidensohn and Silvestri observe about crime statistics?
Gender differences are the most significant feature of recorded crime
Give two examples of official statistics about gender differences
Four out of five convicted offenders in England and Wales are male; by the age of 40, 9% of females have a criminal conviction, as against 32% of males.
How many more times likely are men to be convicted of homicide?
15x more likely
What questions do statistics raise?
Do women really commit so few crimes or are the figures an invalid picture of their offending? How can we explain why those women who do offend commit crimes? Why do males commit more crimes than females?
What are the two arguments that have been put forward to support the view that statistics underestimate the amount of female offending compared to male?
Female crimes are less likely to be reported e.g. shoplifting is less likely to be noticed and reported than the sexual crimes more often committed by men. When women’s crimes are detected and reported, they are less likely to be prosecuted and if they are, will be let off relatively lightly.
How has self-report studies helped to bypass the barrier put up by the chivalry thesis in researching the true difference in crime between males and females?
Graham and Bowling found that men were 2.33 times more likely to commit to having committed an offence in the previous year while OS show males as 4 times more likely to offend.
Explain the chivalry thesis in a sentence
Most criminal justice agents such as police officers, magistrates and judges are men who are socialised to act in a chivalrous way towards women.
How does Box criticise the chivalry thesis?
Review of british and american self-report studies also concludes that women who commit serious offences are not treated more favourably than men.
Why does Heidensohn criticise the chivalry thesis?
The courts treat females more harshly than males when they deviate from gender norms.
Give two examples of how the courts are biased against women
Double standards - courts punish girls but not boys for premature or promiscuous sexual activity. Sharpe found that 7/11 girls were referred for support because they were sexually active but none out of 44 boys. Women who do not conform to accepted standards of monogamous heterosexuality and motherhood are punished more harshly.
How does Carlen support the view that the justice system is biased against women?
She argues that when women are jailed, it is less for the seriousness of the crimes and more according to the court’s assessment of them as wives, mothers and daughters.
What did smart find about how judges treat rape cases?
She quotes Judge Wild when he says ‘if she doesn’t want it she only has to keep her legs shut’.
What did Adler find about rape cases?
Women who are deemed to lack respectability, such as single parents, punks and peace protestors find it difficult to have their testimony believed by the court.
What did Lombroso and Ferrero find about gender differences in crime?
Criminality is innate but there are very few born female criminals.This is supported by the psychological explanation that biological factors such as higher levels of testosterone in males can account for gender differences in violent offending.
Explain the functionalist sex role theory
Parsons argues that while men take the instrumental breadwinner role, performed largely outside the home, women perform the expressive role in the home where they take the main responsibility for socialising the children. It tends to mean that boys reject feminine models of behavior and seek to distance themselves from such models by engaging in compensatory compulsory masculinity through aggression and anti-social behaviour
How does Cohen support the functionalist sex role theory?
The relative lack of an adult role model means that boys are more likely to turn to all male street gangs as a source of masculine identity.
How does Walklate criticise sex role theory?
Parsons assumes that because women have the biological capacity to bear children, they are best suited to the expressive role.
Explain Heidensohn’s view of patriarchal control
The most striking thing about women’s behaviour is how conformist it is. This is because patriarchal society imposes greater control over women and this reduces their opportunities to offend. For example, control at home, control in public, and control at work. Meanwhile, these patriarchal restrictions on women’s lives mean they have fewer opportunities for crime.
Summarise carlen’s class and gender deals
Most convicted serious female criminals are working class. Working class women are generally led to conform through the prommise of two types of rewards or deals. The class deal - women who work will be offered material rewards, with a decent standard of living and leisure opportunities. 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. If these rewards are not available or worth the effort, crime becomes more likely.
Give evaluation on Heidensohn and carlen’s approach to female crime
Both control theory and feminism can be accused of seeing women’s behaviour as determined by external forces such as patriarchal controls or class and gender deals.
Explain the liberation thesis
Adler puts forward the liberation thesis and adler argues that as women become liberated from patriarchy, their crimes will become as frequent and as serious as men’s. Changes in the structure of society have led to changes in women’s offending behaviour. As patriarchal controls and discrimination have lessened, women have begun to adopt traditionally male roles in both legitimate activities and illegitimate activity. Women no longer just commit traditional female crimes such as shoplifting and prostitution.
Give criticisms of the liberation thesis
The female crime rate began rising in the 1950s - long before the women’s liberation movement which emerged in the late 1960s. Most female criminals are working class - the group least likely to be influenced by women’s liberation.
What did steffensmeier and schwartz find about the criminalisation of females?
While the female share of arrests for violence grew ⅕ to ⅓ between 1980 and 2003, the rise in the police statistics was not matched by the findings of victim surveys. Victims did not report any increase in attacks by females.
Explain steffensmeier and schwartz’s idea of net widening
In reality, there has been no change in women’s involvement in violent crime. They argue the rise in arrests is due to the justice system ‘widening the net’ - arresting and prosecuting females for less serious forms of violence than previously.
