Patterns Of Crime - Gender Trends Flashcards
Chivalry Thesis
Pollack - women are less likely to be prosecuted for offences, as the CJS is more lenient towards them.
Pollack argues men have a prosecutive attitude toward women.
Evidence FOR chivalry thesis
Self report studies found that individuals are asked about what crimes they have committed - found that females are treated more leniently.
Graham and Bowling - sample of 1721 of 14-15 year olds. Although males were more likely to offend, the difference was smaller than recorded.
Found that males were 2.33 times more likely to admit to crime.
Women are more cautioned rather than prosecuted.
Roger Hoods study of over 3000 defendants found that women were 1/3 less likely to be jailed.
Evidence AGAINST Chivalry Thesis
Farrington and Morris - study of sentencing of 408 offences of theft in magistrates court found that women were not sentenced more leniently.
Buckle and Farrington - observational study of shoplifting, in a department store, found twice as males shoplifting as females even though there was an equal amount of men and women into the statistics. Suggests women are more likely to be prosecuted.
If this is the case, it could be because their offences are less serious, according to box.
Women offenders also seem more likely to show remorse, therefore are more likely to receive caution rather than going to court.
Why women commit less crime:
Functionalist sex role theory - Parsons
Remind yourself of who plays the expressive role and who played the instrumental role in the family.
Men’s instrumental role is performed largely outside the house (being the breadwinner and working).
Women perform the expressive role at home (taking care of children and socialising them), boys reject this feminine behaviour - they distance themselves by engaging in compensatory compulsory masculinity; risk taking, aggressive and antisocial behaviour to make up for the absent male role model.
Cohen - due the the abscense of father, boys find their masculine identity in delinquent street gangs.
Similar to RR, Charles Murray argues that SPF’s lead to delinquency.
Functionalist sex role theory AO3:
Feminists criticise functionalists for ignoring the role of patriarchy in creating gender differences in patterns of offending.
Walklate - criticises parsons for assuming women are biologically suited to the caring role.
Therefore explanations for crime is based on assumptions made about biology.
Heidensohn - patriarchal control
Women commit fewer crimes than men because patriarchal control has greater control over women, they then have less opportunities to offend.
Control at home:
Women have housework and children to care for, limiting their free time at home to offend,
Men have financial control over women,
Daughters are also restricted - can’t stay out too late, bedroom culture.
Control in public:
Fear of male sexual violence,
Media reporting of rape frightens women going out,
Dressing up can lead to women being seen as ‘loose’,
Having a respectable attitude (double standards).
Control at work:
Women have subordinate positions,
‘Glass ceiling’ prevents women rising to higher positions.
Patriarchal control AO3:
The liberation thesis - women have become liberated from patriarchy, so their offending is now similar to men’s. There is a rise in female crime rate.
Patriarchal control has lessened and opportunities have become equal.
Carlen: Class and gender deals
Carlen studied 39 WC women who were convicted of various crimes. 20 were in prison/youth custody. Carlen argues that most convicted serious female criminals were WC.
Humans are rational. They are offered a deal, or reward in conforming to society’s rules.
So people only commit crime if they don’t believe they will receive the rewards.
There are two deals:
The class deal - Working will earn women a good standard of living.
The gender deal - women who conform to conventional domestic gender role will gain material and emotional rewards through family life.
Women in Carlen’s sample had failed to find legitimate ways of earning a living, most had been in poverty (thus hard to find a job) so the class deal means nothing for them.
Some women were abused by their fathers or partners, so they would gain nothing from the gender deal.
These women had nothing to lose but needed to make a living, therefore they turned to crime.
Class and gender deals AO3:
Carlen’s sample size is small and possibly unrepresentative, consisting largely of serious offenders.
Feminism see women’s behaviour as determined by external forces such as patriarchal control and class & gender deals. This ignores the importance of free will in offending.
The liberation thesis
Alder’s liberation thesis argues that women will become liberated from patriarchy,their offending will become similar to men. Women’s liberation is leading to higher female crime rates.
Patriarchal control and discrimination has lessened and opportunities have become more equal.
Women have adopted traditional male roles in both legitimate (work) and illegitimate spheres (crime).
Liberation thesis AO3:
Female crime rate began rising in the 1950’s, long before the women’s liberation movement, which emerged in the late 60’s.
Most female criminals are WC, the group that’s least likely to be influenced by the liberation movement, which benefited the RC much more.
Why do men commit crime:
Messerschmidt
He uses the concept of masculinity to explain men’s higher rate of offending.
E.g masculinity is an accomplishment, so men have to work to present it others.
Messerschmidt argues that different masculinities coexist within society, hegemonic masculinity is the dominant one.
Part of Messerschmidt, subordinate masculinities:
subordinate masculinities include gay men who have no desire to accomplish hegemonic masculinity, as well as lower class/ethnic minority men, who lack the recourses.
Messerschmidt sees C&D as recourses that different men use in accomplishing masculinity.
White MC Youths - suck up to teachers to achieve status, leading to an accommodating masculinity in school. outside school, their masculinity takes an oppositional form, they get drunk.
White WC Youths - have less opportunities, their masculinity is oppositional both in and out of school. can be linked to willis’ study.
Black lower WC youths - have fewer expectations of a job, may use gang memberships and violence to express their masculinity.
MC men use corporate crime to accomplish hegemonic masculinity.
Messerschmidt AO3:
Messerschmitt also doesn’t explain why not all men use crime to accomplish masculinity.
its doesn’t explain why masculinity is the reason they commit crime, it rather uses masculinity to describe them.
he also overworks the concept of masculinity as an explanation of C&D.
Winlow: postmodernity masculinity and crime
Globalisation has led a shift towards a postmodern deindustrialised society.
which has led to the loss of traditional male jobs, where less WC men can express their masculinity.
men can still express their masculinity (due to globalisation) in jobs such as working in the night time leisure economy, they could be a bouncer allowing them to express their masculinity.
Winlow - studies bouncers in Sutherland, an area on deindustrialisation. working as bouncers gave men both paid work and the opportunity for illegal business ventures in drugs, as well as the opportunity to show their masculinity through violence.
