Social distribution of crime (gender,ethnicity, class and locality) Flashcards
What do official statistics show in terms of gender and crime ?
4 out of 5 offenders in England and Wales are male.
By the age of 40 9% of females have had a criminal conviction compared to 32% of males.
There is a higher proportion of female offenders in terms of property offences (except burglary).
A higher proportion of male offenders than females in terms of sexual crimes or violent crimes.
Males are likely to be repeat offenders, to have longer criminal careers and to commit more serious crimes e.g. men are 15 times more likely to be convicted of homicide.
What are the two feminist approaches in controlling crime ?
Liberation thesis (Adler) and control theory ( Heidensohn)
Explain Heidensohn patriarchal control theory
women commit fewer crimes than men because we live in a patriarchal society which imposes greater control over women. She then argues that these controls reduce the amount of opportunity that women have to commit crime.
Give an examples of a patriarchal control suggested by Heidensohn.
A good example of the patriarchal control that Heidensohn suggests exists is control inside the home. As a lot of women are conforming to society’s norms and values of the wife playing the housewife role, women have domestic responsibility to then do all the house work. This therefore means that their leisure time is limited, resulting in their opportunity to commit crime being restricted as they’re always in the house.
Males also have financial dominance in a lot of house holds meaning that their partners leisure time outside the house yet again is limited, once more reducing the opportunity to commit crime.
Why has Heidensohn been criticised ?
Heidensohns approach to female crime is based on a combination of feminism and control theory which actually has demonstrated that many of these patriarchal controls actually help prevent women from deviating from social norms, therefore meaning that females won’t want to commit crime as society sees it as wrong.
Carlen like Heidensohn tried explaining why females commit less crime through control theory, explain Carlens version.
Carlen had adopted Hirschi’ s (1969) control theory to help explain female crime. Hirschi argued that humans act rationally and are controlled by being offered a ‘deal’; in return rewards are given for conforming to social norms, but if these rewards aren’t received people will return to crime or if they believe the rewards of the crime appear greater than the risk they will return to crime. Carlen like Hirschi argues that the working class women are generally led to conform through the promise of reward, but specifically two types of reward; the class deal and the gender deal.
Explain the gender deal ?
The gender deal is that patriarchal ideology promises women material and emotional rewards in family life by conforming to the norms of a conventional domestic gender role.
Explain the class deal ?
The class deal is for women who work and is that they will be offered material rewards and a decent standard of living and leisure opportunities.
Has Carlen got any evidence to support her view point ?
Carlen conducted unstructured tape recorded interviews with 39 working class women who had all been convicted of a range of crimes including theft, fraud, handling stolen goods, burglary and arson. She found that the women either didn’t get the opportunity to make the gender deal or had some factor that put them off the idea of the perfect family life, and in terms of the class deal many of the women had always been in poverty and had been to prison and even earned more qualifications but still struggled to find a legitimate way of earning a decent way of living which has left them feeling powerless, oppressed and victims of injustice which has made crime seem more attractive, if they had the chance to make these deals they would have and would conform to society’s norms and values meaning that the opportunity to commit crime would decrease as they are being provided with these rewards.This therefore shows that most women commit crime because the failure in the patriarchal society to deliver these ‘deals’.
Explain Adlers view point ? (liberation thesis )
although women do commit less crime, due to women’s liberation from patriarchy, a new type of female crime has arose and also an increase in female crime has happened.She also argues that changes in the structure of society have led to changes in women’s offending behaviour.
Explain why Adler thinks the rise in female crime is happening ?
As patriarchal controls and discrimination lave lessened, and opportunities in education and work have become more equal due to changes in law e.g. Equality act, women have begun to adopt traditionally male roles in both legitimate activity (work) and illegitimate activity (crime). As a result women no longer just commit tradition female crimes such as prostitution and shop lifting, they now commit more male associated crimes such as violent crimes and white collar crimes. Adler argues this is because of women’s greater self confidence and assertiveness, and the fact that they now have greater opportunities in the legitimate structure.
Why do critics reject Adlers liberation thesis ?
critics reject Adlers argument (liberation thesis) because there is little evidence that the illegitimate opportunity structure of professional crime has opened up to women. Laider and Hunt (2001) found that female gang members in the USA were expected to conform to conventional gender roles in the same way as non deviant girls.
What is Messerschmidts view ?
we should be looking at why men commit more crime than women.
What did Messerschmidt say about masculinity ?
Messerschmidt identifies that masculinity is a social construct and men have to constantly work at constructing and presenting it to others. He further identifies that different types of masculinity co-exist and that hegemonic masculinity, one of these types, is the dominant, prestigious form that most men want to accomplish.
Describe hegemonic masculinity ?
Hegemonic masculinity has been defined through ‘ work in the paid labour market, the subordination of women, heterosexualism and the driven and uncontrollable sexuality of men’. This therefore means that some men must have subordinate masculinity such homosexuals who have no desire to accomplish hegemonic masculinity, as well as lower class and some ethnic minority men, who lack the resources to do so.
Why has Messerschmidt been criticised ?
Messerschmidt however has failed to explain why not all males use crime to achieve masculinity, and he also over works the concept of masculinity to explain all male crimes, from joy riding to embezzlement.
According to official statistics which groups are over represented in the system, give examples ?
Blacks and to some extent Asians.
Black people make up just 2.8% of the population, but 11% of the prison population.
Asians make up 4.7% of the population, but 6 % of the prison population.
Other sources of statistics such as victim surveys can be used, but what is the limitations of victim surveys ?
They rely on a victims memory of events- Evidence provided by Bowling and Phillips show that we over identify blacks.
They only cover personal crimes, which make up only a fifth of all crimes. Muggings are an even smaller fraction- about 1.7 of recorded crimes.
They exclude under 16’s- minority ethnic groups contain a high number of young people.
There are ethnic difference in every stage of the cjs, how do we explain them, explain a few differences in the main stages of the cjs ? (3)
Arrests and Cautions- in 2006/7 rate for blacks was 3.6 times the rate for whites, also less likely to receive a caution once arrested.
Sentencing- 2006/7 custodial sentences were given to a greater proportion of back offenders (68%) than whites (55%) or Asian offenders (59%). Whites and Asians are more likely to receive community sentence than blacks.
Prison- in 2007 just over a quarter of the male population were from minority ethnic groups, including 15% black and 7% Asians. Among British nationals 7.4 per 1000 black people were in jail compared with 1.7 per 1000 Asians and 1.4 per 1000 white people.
What would left realists argue about these statistics ?
Left realists such as Lea and Young would argue that these official statistics represent the real differences in rates of offending.
What are the two main explanations for ethnic differences in the statistics ?
Left realism- the statistics represent the real differences in rates of offending.
Neo Marxism- the statistics are a social construct resulting from racist labelling and discrimination in the cjs.
Explain one response to what lea and Young believe (3 reasons for crime)
one response is the formation of delinquent subcultures, especially including young unemployed black males. They also say this leads to a higher amount if utilitarian crime such as robbery and theft as it’s a way to cope with the relative deprivation. Furthermore they argue that because they’re marginalised it will lead to non utilitarian crimes such as assault and battery because they’re frustrated at the system.
What else does Lea and Young acknowledge ?
Lea and Young also acknowledge that police often act in racist ways resulting in unjustified criminalisation, However they don’t believe that discriminatory policing fully explains the differences in ethnic crime rates as they noticed that 90% crime known to the police is reported rather than discovered by police. Also they argue that racist policing cannot fully explain the differences in ethnic crime rates because the police would have to be really selective in their policing as blacks have a higher rate of criminality than Asians.
Explain Lea and Youngs conclusion ?
statistics represent real differences in levels of offending between ethnic groups and that they’re caused by real differences in levels of relative deprivation and marginalisation.
