Gender and Crime - Crime

Question 1

What does Heidensohn claim about gender and crime?

Answer 1

Gender differences are perhaps ‘the most significant feature of recored crime’

Question 2

By their 40th birthday what ratio of men and women have been convicted of a crime?

Answer 2

1: 3 of men compared to 1:10 of women

- men more likely to be repeated offenders

Question 3

How have the rates of crime by men and women changed over time?

Answer 3

• 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

Question 4

What is the gendering of crime?

Answer 4

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

Question 5

What is the biological explanation of why women commit less crime?

Answer 5

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

Question 6

What did Dalton claim? (biological explanation)

Answer 6

Hormonal or menstrual factors can influence a minority of women to commit crime in certain circumstances

Question 7

What is the sex-role theory + gender socialisation explanation of why women commit less crime?

Answer 7

• 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

Question 8

What does Heidensohn suggest? (sex-role theory + gender socialisation explanation)

Answer 8

Women have more to lose than men if they get involved in crime because they face greater risk of stigma or shame

Question 9

What does Carlen suggest? (sex-role theory + gender socialisation explanation)

Answer 9

Women are socialised into preforming a central role as ‘guardians of domestic morality’, and they risk social disapproval when they fail to do so

Question 10

What does Smart suggest? (sex-role theory + gender socialisation explanation)

Answer 10

Women who do take the risk face the double deviancy of being condemned for committing a crime AND for behaving in an unfeminine way

Question 11

What does Heidensohn suggest? (control theory)

Answer 11

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)

Question 12

How does the marginalisation of women stop them committing crime?

Answer 12

The marginalisation of women into a narrow range of roles limited their opportunities to commit crime

Question 13

How dos the rational choice theory explain why women commit less crime?

Answer 13

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

Question 14

What is the chivalry thesis?

Answer 14

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

Question 15

How does Adler suggest that female criminality is growing?

Answer 15

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

Question 16

How does Denscombe suggest that female criminality is growing?

Answer 16

There is more of a masculinised ‘laddette’ culture = young women are adopting behaviour traditionally associated with young men

Question 17

What is the sex role theory and gender socialisation of why men appear to commit more and different crime to women?

Answer 17

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

Question 18

What does Connell suggest about accomplishing and asserting masculinity?

Answer 18

There is hegemonic masculinity in our society - men need to accomplish this masculinity which may be through crime

Question 19

What does Messerschmidt suggest about accomplishing and asserting masculinity?

Answer 19

Men sometimes turn to crime and violence as a means of asserting their masculinity when legitimate and traditional means of demonstrating masculinity are blocked

Question 20

What does Lyng suggest about accomplishing and asserting masculinity?

Answer 20

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

Question 21

What is the problem with the masculinity thesis?

Answer 21

It doesn’t explain why not all men who don’t have legitimate means of asserting their masculinity don’t turn to crime

Question 22

How can police stereotyping cause men to commit more crime?

Answer 22

Police are more likely to see men rather than women as potential criminals

Question 23

How does the strain theory explain crime and gender?

Answer 23

• Men may experience social pressure to achieve legitimate goals as ‘breadwinner’ = innovate to achieve them
• Women are likely to ‘carry on regardless’ as ritualists

Question 24

How do subcultural theories explain crime and gender?

Miller, Cloward + Ohlin, McRobbie

Answer 24

• 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

Question 25

How do ecological theories explain crime and gender?

Answer 25

Men participate in the ‘nocturnal economy’ between 9pm and 3pm

Question 26

How do labelling theories explain crime and gender?

Answer 26

Acts committed by men may be more likely ro be labelled deviant
However: men have more power/influence to define an activity as a problem

Question 27

How do marxist feminist explain crime and gender?

Answer 27

Crime is a rational response to capitalism but women are more likely to be victims of male crime because they are the ‘takers of shit’ (Ansley)

Question 28

How does left realism explain crime and gender?

Answer 28

• young black men more likely to suffer relative deprivation + marginalisation which may lead to more crime + the formation of sub-cultural responses
• african caribbean women may be less likely to participate in deviant subcultures as less marginalised or relatively deprived by virtue of better achievement + higher status in matrifocal families

Question 29

How does right realism explain crime and gender?

Answer 29

Loss of traditional family values, increase SPFs, welfare dependency + rejection of the house wife role as led to ‘Broken Britain’ = increased crime amongst w/c men and women