6. Gender, crime and justice
- Created by: Amy Parkinson
- Created on: 27-04-15 14:51
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- Gender, crime and justice
- Gender patterns in crime
- Official statistics show:
- Men to be generally more criminal than women
- Men commit more sexual and violent crimes than women
- Men are more likely to be repeat offenders
- Should we take OF's at face value?
- How do we explain these trends?
- Do women actually commit fewer crimes?
- Typically female crimes are less likely to be reported
- Women are less likely to be prosecuted harshly if at all
- Do OFs paint a valid picture of crime
- POLLACK
- Most criminal justice agents are men and are socialised to be chivalrous
- The masked female offender
- Women's roles allow them to get away with crimes like poisoning relatives
- Women are better at hiding their crimes due to their biological make up
- Women are used to deceiving men as they hide pain during menstruation and mislead men during intercourse
- EVAL: HEIDONSOHN
- Concealment of pain during menstruation is not universal
- POLLACK
- Evidence against the chivalry thesis
- BOX
- Looked at self-report studies in the UK and USA
- Although OFs may be underestimated when it comes to serious crimes OFs are fairly accurate
- BOX
- Double standards in the CJS
- HEIDONSOHN
- The CJS is more likely to punish women more harshly
- Female criminals are seen as doubly deviant because they break not only social norms but also gender norms
- CARLEN
- Women are seen as mothers, wives and daughters rather than examining the seriousness of their crimes
- HEIDONSOHN
- Official statistics show:
- Explaining female crime
- LOMBROSO & FERRERO
- Criminality is innate but there are very few born female criminals
- 3 main explanations of gender differences in crime:
- Sex role theory
- Control theory
- Liberation thesis
- Functionalist sex role theory
- Socialisation: girls are socialised into caring roles during childhood whereas men are socialised to be risk-taking and independent
- Social control: females are more likely to be closely supervised
- Role model: girls have better role models than boys which stops them turning to subcultures
- Lack of opportunities: females are less able to access the criminal opportunity strcuture
- EVAL: WALKLATE: this theory makes biological assumptions that all women are best suited to the expressive role purely because they are able to bear children
- Control theory
- HEIDONSOHN
- Women commit fewer crimes because they are subject to greater amounts of social control than men in a patriarchal society
- Control at home: constant housework and childcare restricts their time and movement and confines them to the house for long periods of time
- Control at work: behaviour is controlled by male supervisors. Sexual harassment keeps women 'in their place'
- Control in public: threat of male violence, especially sexual violence frightens women into staying indoors
- Liberation thesis
- If society becomes less dominated by men, crime rates among women will become more similar to that of men
- ADLER
- As females take on more masculine roles they too begin to commit more masculine crimes
- 3 ways women have become liberated:
- Patriarchal control and discrimination has lessened
- Opportunities in education and work have become more equal
- Women have begun to adopt traditionally male roles in both legitimate and illegitimate activity
- EVAL: HEIDONSOHN: the women most likely to benefit from liberation are m/c yet most crimes are committed by the w/c
- LOMBROSO & FERRERO
- Why do men commit crime?
- MESSERSCHMIDT
- Masculinity is a social construction and men have to constantly work at constructing and presenting it to others
- Some men have more resources to draw upon than others
- Hegemonic masculinity is society's accepted definition of what it mean to be a man
- Some men have subordinated masculinities (e.g. gay men who have no desire to accomplish hegemonic masculinity)
- Those men who lack the power and resources to achieve masculinity turn to crime
- Different types of men (e.g. w/c compared to m/c) may turn to different crimes (e.g. white collar crime compared to street robbery)
- EVAL: Is masculinity an explanation for crime or just a description of male offenders?
- Hegemonic masculinity
- KATZ
- Seductions of crime
- Many men may turn to crime simply for the pleasure and thrill it offers them
- He is influenced by the work of MATZA saying young men drift in and out of different types of crime
- LYNG
- Edgework
- Draws on the work of KATZ
- Young men search for pleasure through risk-taking, he calls this edgework as it is an edge between danger and security
- His theory of edgework explains crimes such as hooliganism, joy-riding, drug-taking, gang crime and speeding
- WINLOW
- Postmodernity, masculinity and crime
- Globalisation has led to a shift from a modern industrial society to a postmodern de-industrial society
- This shift has led to the loss of many traditional manual jobs through which men used to gain masculinity from
- There has also been an expansion of the service sector
- For some young w/c men, these changes have provided a combination of legal employment, lucrative criminal opportunities and a means of expressing their masculinity
- MESSERSCHMIDT
- What kinds of crime do women commit?
- Some feminists argue that we should be focussing on why women commit less crime than men but rather what type of crimes they do commit
- EYSENCK
- Psychological
- Extroverts are more likely to be criminals than introverts
- Tested his theory on married and unmarried mothers
- He argued that an unmarried mums are extrovert and therefore more prone to deviance
- EVAL: are all unmarried mums extroverts? May not reflect personality
- CHAPMAN
- Economical marginalisation
- The second most committed crime amongst women is fraud
- He says this is because women form the bulk of poor people in society
- CARLEN: class & gender deals
- Similarly to CHAPMAN believed that female crime is caused by poverty
- Disagrees with ADLER as she argues that many of the women she encountered had not experienced the benefits of female liberation
- She argues that w/c women are generally led to conform through the promise of 2 types of deals
- The class deal: women who work will be offered material rewards with a decent standard of living and leisure opportunities
- The gender deal: patriarchal ideology promises women material and economical reward from family life by conforming to the N&Vs of a conventional domestic gender role
- The women Carlen interviewed blamed their crimes on several factors:
- 1. Physical and sexual abuse from fathers or partners
- 2. Time spent in care which broke bonds with family and friends
- 3. Running away from care left the women homeless, unemployed and poor
- The deals did not make criminal women conform as:
- In terms of the gender deal, most of the women had either not had the opportunity to make the deal or saw few rewards and many disadvantages in family life
- They had gained no rewards from the class deal so they felt they had nothing to lose e
- Women, crime and punishment
- SMART
- Women have to justify themselves in **** trials in order to be considered and taken seriously when they are the true victimes
- DOBASH & DOBASH
- Men are treated leniently in domestic violence cases
- The police are reluctant to get involved in domestic violence cases as they see the family as a private and sacred sphere which should
- SMART
- Gender patterns in crime
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