gender and crime Flashcards
Who observes that gender differences are the most significant feature in recorded crime? What are some examples?
Heidensohn and Silvestri.
Four out of five convicted offenders in England and Wales are male.
By age 40, 9% of females have a criminal conviction against 32% of males.
What do recorded crime show us about repeat offenders?
They are more likely to be male and have longer crime careers and to commit more serious crimes. Men are 15 times more likely to be convicted of homicide.
What are the two arguments that have been put forward to argue that statistics underestimate the amount of female offending against men?
The idea that typical female crimes are less likely to be reported. E.g shoplifting is less likely to be noticed or reported in comparison to the violent crimes that men commit.
Even when reported, women’s crimes are less likely to be prosecuted and be let off lightly.
What is the chivary thesis?
The idea that most criminal justice agents are men and men are socialised to act chivalrous towards women.
What does Pollak argue about the chivalry thesis?
Argues that men have a protective attitude towards women are therefore do not accuse them, arrest them, prosecute them or find them guilty
What did Graham and Bowling find about the differences between their findings and official statistics?
They used a sample of 1721 14-25 year olds and found that official statistics inflated the amount of crime actually committed by men.
They found that men are 2.33 times more likely to admit to have committed an offence in the previous 12 months where in the official statistics it said that men are 4 times more likely to offend.
What did Flood-Page et al find about self-reported offenders?
Found that 1 in 11 female self-offenders had been cautioned or prosecuted while the figure for men was over 1 in 7
What findings from court statistics provide support for the chivalry thesis?
Females are more likely to be released on custody
Women are more likely to be given a fine or community service and less likely to be sent to prison. Women on average receive shorter sentences.
Only 1 in 9 women receive a prison sentence for shoplifting but only 1 in 5 males.
What did Farrington an d Morris find on their study on sentencing?
In 408 offences of theft in a magistrates court found that women were not sentences more leniently in comparison to others.
What did Box find in their review of British and American self-report studies?
That women who committed serious offences are not treated more favourably than men.
What did Buckle and Farrington find in their observational study on shoplifting in department stores?
Witnessed twice as many males shoplifting as females despite the numbers of female and male offenders being more or less equal. This small-scale study suggests that women shoplifters may be more likely to be prosecuted than their male counterparts
