Gender, Crime And Justice Flashcards
The Chivalry Thesis
Pollack- proposed that most people who work in the CJS are men, and they are socialised to act in a Chivalrous, meaning being considerate or nice towards women. As a result the CJS tends to be more lenient towards women.
Evidence supporting- Hood studied 3000 offenders and found women were 3 times less likely to be jailed than men, for similar criminal behaviours.
Evidence against- Heidensohn argues that women face harsher punishment and unfair treatment due to ‘double deviance’ women are punished twice, once for breaking the law and second for breaking gender norms.
Why women don’t commit crime?
Functionalist sex role theory:
Gender inference in crime focused on the different socialisation of men and women.
Ex. Boys- tough, aggressive and risk taking this means they are more likely to commit crime. Whilst Girls- emotional, less competitive and cautious meaning women are less prone to commit crime.
Parsons- compares gender differences in crime and deviance to gender roles in conventional nuclear family. Men instrumental, women expressive. Men are in an environment to commit more crime (greater opportunity), than women are less likely to commit crime in the household.
Why women don’t commit crime?
Heidensohn- Patriarchal control.
Women commit fewer crimes because patriarchal society imposes greater control over them, which reduces their opportunities to offend.
- control at home. Women stuck in the house for long amounts of time reduces opportunity.
- control in public. Fear of being defined as not respectable, don’t want to ruin their reputation
- control at work. Less likely to be a position of power to commit crime (e.g WCC)
Heidensohn- Patriarchal control EVALUATION
+ The Islington Crime Survey found 54% of women avoid going out after dark for fear of being victims of crime, compared to only 14% of men.
X This theory is outdated and deterministic, assumes women aren’t in control of their finances and positions of power, when’s that’s not the case.
For rising female crime?
Carlen- Class and Gender deals.
Conducted unstructured interviews on 39 female offenders. Convicted of a range of crimes including theft, fraud, prostitution and drugs etc. Carlen argues that working class women are generally led to conform through the promise of 2 types of rewards.
The class deal- women who work will be offered material rewards and good standard of living.
The gender deal- patriarchal ideology promise women emotional rewards is they conform to conventional domestic gender roles.
If these rewards are not available or worth the effort, crime becomes more likely.
Carlen- Class and Gender deals EVALUATION
+ Qualitative data gained from actual female offenders.
X Her study was based on 39 women, hard to generalise her findings with a small sample size.
Why do men commit more crimes?
Parsons- Functionalist sex role theory.
Men play the instrumental role within the family, they’re normally outside of the house and encouraged to be more competitive. Less restricted within time and place therefore have more opportunity to commit crime.
Hegemonic masculinity.
Some men believe they must resort to criminal behaviour to appear more masculine.
Hegemonic masculinity is the dominant form of masculinity that most men wish to accomplish through paid work, competitiveness and d aggression. These men cannot achieve this legitimately so use illegitimate ways, such as steroids.
X Fail to explain why all men don’t commit crime.
