Gender and Crime - Crime Flashcards
What does Heidensohn claim about gender and crime?
Gender differences are perhaps ‘the most significant feature of recored crime’
By their 40th birthday what ratio of men and women have been convicted of a crime?
1: 3 of men compared to 1:10 of women
- men more likely to be repeated offenders
How have the rates of crime by men and women changed over time?
- Growing increase in the proportion of crime committed by women especially young women 11-17 increase between 2004-7
- 1957 men responsbile for 11x more crimes than women, 4:1 in 2008
What is the gendering of crime?
Men are much more likely to be found guilty of cautioned for offending than women:
- 50x more likely for sex offences
- 15x more likely for murder
What is the biological explanation of why women commit less crime?
Women are innately difference to men:
- natural desire to be caring and nurturing
- ‘normal’ women are less likely to commit crime
= rejected by most sociologists
What did Dalton claim? (biological explanation)
Hormonal or menstrual factors can influence a minority of women to commit crime in certain circumstances
What is the sex-role theory + gender socialisation explanation of why women commit less crime?
- Gender socialisation encourages women to value attractiveness, caring and domesticity = not the toughness and aggression men are socialised into
= makes women more averse to taking risks than men and so leaves them with fewer opportunities to commit crime
What does Heidensohn suggest? (sex-role theory + gender socialisation explanation)
Women have more to lose than men if they get involved in crime because they face greater risk of stigma or shame
What does Carlen suggest? (sex-role theory + gender socialisation explanation)
Women are socialised into preforming a central role as ‘guardians of domestic morality’, and they risk social disapproval when they fail to do so
What does Smart suggest? (sex-role theory + gender socialisation explanation)
Women who do take the risk face the double deviancy of being condemned for committing a crime AND for behaving in an unfeminine way
What does Heidensohn suggest? (control theory)
Women are controlled within a patriarchal society: men dominate public spheres, like work and pubs and the streets at night (lots of crime), and women the private sphere of the home (little crime)
How does the marginalisation of women stop them committing crime?
The marginalisation of women into a narrow range of roles limited their opportunities to commit crime
How dos the rational choice theory explain why women commit less crime?
Carlen - women are encouraged to conform:
- class deal = the material rewards arising from working in paid employment
- gender deal = the rewards arising from fulfilling their roles in the family and home
BUT some women make a rational decision to choose crime if rewards are unlikely through conforming
What is the chivalry thesis?
Women are treated more leniently than men due to male dominated CJS
- Home office figure show that female first offenders are abut half as likely to be given a sentence of immediate imprisonment as their male counterparts
How does Adler suggest that female criminality is growing?
Due to changing gender roles:
- women in contemporary Britain have more independence than in the past
- women are becoming more successful in education and work than men
- some traditional forms of control on women are weakening
How does Denscombe suggest that female criminality is growing?
There is more of a masculinised ‘laddette’ culture = young women are adopting behaviour traditionally associated with young men
What is the sex role theory and gender socialisation of why men appear to commit more and different crime to women?
Men have been traditionally associated with the role of breadwinner, aggression etc
- the male peer group reinforce these tendencies
- this traditional role gives men more independence and more opportunities to commit crime
What does Connell suggest about accomplishing and asserting masculinity?
There is hegemonic masculinity in our society - men need to accomplish this masculinity which may be through crime
What does Messerschmidt suggest about accomplishing and asserting masculinity?
Men sometimes turn to crime and violence as a means of asserting their masculinity when legitimate and traditional means of demonstrating masculinity are blocked
What does Lyng suggest about accomplishing and asserting masculinity?
Risk taking can be seen as ‘edge work’:
- there is a thrill to be gained from acting in ways which are on the edge between security and danger = shows the attractiveness of ‘joy riding’
= by taking part in risky activities men may be accomplishing masculinity
What is the problem with the masculinity thesis?
It doesn’t explain why not all men who don’t have legitimate means of asserting their masculinity don’t turn to crime
How can police stereotyping cause men to commit more crime?
Police are more likely to see men rather than women as potential criminals
How does the strain theory explain crime and gender?
- Men may experience social pressure to achieve legitimate goals as ‘breadwinner’ = innovate to achieve them
- Women are likely to ‘carry on regardless’ as ritualists
How do subcultural theories explain crime and gender?
Miller, Cloward + Ohlin, McRobbie
- Miller: the focal concerns of men are different to women due to socialisation. Young men less able to control subterranean values as have more opportunities to express them
- Cloward + Ohlin: young men have greater access to the ‘illegitimate opportunity structure’ due to being less socially controlled in the family/home
- McRobbie: girls more likely to participate in ‘bedroom’ subculture
