Patter Of Crime On Gender,Social Class and Ethnicity Minority Flashcards
4 patterns of crime in relation to gender?
1)Females are more likely to commit property offences (not burglary)
2)Males are more likely to commit violent or sexual crimes
3)Males are more likely to be repeated offenders
4)Men are 15% more likely to be convicted homocide than females
Why are women less likely to to get caught of committing crime?
Women tend to commit less detectable crimes than men such as shoplifting -Even men shoplift but they tend to select bigger and detectable items than women so men are easier to be caught
Two arguments put forward to suggest that statistics underestimate the amount of female crime?
1)Females crimes are less likely to be reported e.g. prostitution benefits men so they don’t report it
2)Females are less likely to be prosecuted for their crimes-Chivalry thesis
Socialisation affect way women commit crime?
Women risk more by becoming criminals as they are seen as ‘double deviant’ meaning that they risk being cast out of their community and being arrested
Pollack Chivalry thesis?
-Men hate to accuse women and thus send them to their punishments,police officers dislike to arrest them
-Pollack says it’s not that women commit less crime than men it’s that they are less likely to be caught committing the crime
Evidence in which official statistics support the chivalry thesis?
1)Females are more likely than male to be released on bail
2)Females are more likely to be fined than sent to prison
Evaluation for Chivalry thesis?
•women were NOT sentenced more leniently than men
•Department stores witnessed more male than women shoplift
•Young males are more likely than women to report that they have engaged in drinking,taking illegal drugs or being violent
•Box-women who commit more serious crimes are not treated better than men
Reasons why women commit less crime than men?
•Sexual Role Theory (Functionalist)
•Patriarchal Control
•Class and Gender
How does Sexual Role Theory make women commit crime less?
•Parsons:Males are often socialised as being tough, aggressive risk-taking so they may be more likely to commit acts of violence or take advantage of criminal opportunities when they were present.
-New Right argues that the absence of a male role model in matrifocal lone parent families leads to boys turning to criminal street gangs as a source of status
-Duncombe and Marsden:Women have less time time to commit crime due to triple shift
How does Patriarchal Control make women commit crime less?
-Women commit less crime than men due to the amount of patriarchal control this can occur:
-Home:Women are controlled at home (domestic violence)
-Work:Women are controlled at work (sexual harassment)
-Public:Women are controlled in public (fear of abuse)
•Daughters are less likely to be allowed to come home late or to go out.They develop the ‘bedroomculture’=Socialising at home with friends rather than in public places
How does Class and Gender make women commit crime less?
Carlen:women commit less crime because of the class deal and the gender deal
-Class deal-material rewards for being in paid work,which enables women purchase consumer goods
-Gender Deal-Conforming to traditional roles of wife and mother and gains emotional rewards and male support.Not all women are able to
Criticisms of women commit less than men?
Liberation thesis-Alder as women have become more liberated from patriarchal control there will be an increase in the levels of female crime as well as an increase in the seriousness of those crime
Why does Masculinity Theory make men commit more crime?
•Messerchmodt men commit crime in order to show their masculinity and prove that they are men
•Hegemonic masculinity is defined as a practice that legitimise men’s dominant position in society-this is stereotypical masculinity
•Subordinate masculinity is a form of masculinity in which a person lacks many qualities of hegemonic while expressing qualities opposite to hegemonic masculinity
Postmodernity masculinity and crime?
•Winlow-The loss of traditional jobs means that men can no longer demonstrate their masculinity e.g. bouncers
•Bodily capital-Men are now able to use their physical features to display their masculinity and therefore other men do not ‘mess’ with them
Evaluation of Masculinity and crime?
-Not all men commit crimes to accomplish masculinity it could be considered a description of an offender rather than an explanation
-Messerschmidt is in danger of a circular argument that masculinity explains male crimes because men commit them.
Socialisation and Opportunity is another reason men commit more crime than men?
•Socialisation-Men often are stereotyped as being more violent than women which can lead to self fulfilling prophecy
•Opportunity-Men have more opportunity to commit crime both blue collar crime and white collar crime.
Reasons why Ethnic minority causes crime?
•Demographic
•Triple Quandary
•Left Realist
How does Demographic affect ethnicity?
Morris says young people compared to the white ethnicity majority, explain why there is higher ethnicity minority criminality as young people are more likely to commit crime
Evaluation of Demographic?
Statistical illusion-it’s impossible to determine if it’s the age of the offenders that causes the higher rates or their ethnicity
How does Triple Quandary affect ethnicity?
Sewell identifies 3 risk factors which could be responsible for the relatively high levels of crime amongst black boys:
1)Lack of a father figure
2)Negative experience of white
3)Media-Media influence of hip hop and rap stars believe that status can be achieved in two ways 1)Acquisition of status symbol designer clothing and jewellery 2) Construction of hyper masculinity based on violence and sexual consequence
Evaluation of Triple Quandary?
Rise of positive black role models e.g Barack Obama.Black crime tends to victimise black people
How does Left Realist affect ethnicity?
Lea and Young suggest ethnic minorities suffer from marginalisation and relative deprivation.This can lead to ethnic minorities forming subcultures which alleviate feelings of marginalisation but these can take deviant forms and lead to higher rates of criminality
Evaluation Left realist?
Not all EM join subculture and not all are criminals in nature
Ethnic minorities as victims not criminals?
•Police targeting
•Locality theory
•Racism
•Social and Cultural theory
