Gender and crime

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  • Gender and crime
    • Trends:
      • Prison Stats:
        • by age 40, 9% of women have a conviction
        • by age 40, 32% of men have a conviction
      • Male crime:
        • Types: violent crimes, assault, sexual harassment, white collar crime and corporate crime
        • men are more likely to be repeat offenders
        • Men are 15x more likely to be convicted of homicide
      • Female crime:
        • Types: property offences (not burglary), fraud, benefit crimes and prostitution
        • a higher proportion of women are convicted of property offences compared to Men
    • Reasons why women commit less crime:
      • Carlen: Control theory:
        • class deal - material rewards for being in paid work which enables women to purchase consumer goods
        • gender deal - conforming to traditional roles brings emotional rewards and male support
      • Heidensohn: social control:
        • women commit less crime than men due to the amount of patriarchal control women are subjected to
        • women are controlled in the home, at work and in public
          • an example: is bedroom culture. As young girls, they are kept inside rather than being free to roam the streets like boys do.
      • Parsons: Sex role theory:
        • females commit less as they are socialized as a child to be inside and helping their mother. While boys are out and free
        • girls learn more values for education due to the socialisation at home and schools
          • schools control the girls dress code heavier than the boys. Girls are heavily restricted by their clothing and attitude. such as "not lady like"
      • Pollack: chivalry thesis:
        • women dont commit less crime but instead they are less likely to be convicted.
          • the Criminal Justice system being mostly made up of men who are brought up to be chivalrous to women.
    • Reasons for increased female crime:
      • functionalist Sex role theory: Parsons 1955
        • due to the conventional nuclear family, women are seen to be in the expressive role and men as the instrumental breadwinner
          • while this gives female an adult role model, boys tend to reject feminine role models due to their expression of feelings
      • patriarchal control: Heidensohn
        • due to patriarchal control, women seem to be breaking away from this control and committing more crime
          • this is also through girls socialisation of being controlled by their fathers.
    • Reasons for male crime rates:
      • Masculinity Theory: Messerchmidt
        • Men commit crime in order to show their masculinity and break away from negative labels to prove themselves.
        • He argues that different masculinities coexist in society.
          • Hegemonic masculinity is the dominant
          • however there is also subordinated masculinity which is typically gay men who dont desire to achieve hegemonic masculinity
        • criticisms:
          • 1. the question - is masculinity the reason for crime or the explanation of male offenders. 2.he doesn't explain why not all men use crime to accomplish masculinity 3.he overworks the concept of masculinity to explain virtually all male crimes
      • labelling
        • Men are stereotyped as more violent which can lead to the self-fulfilling prophecy

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