The Chivalry thesis - Carol Smart
- Created by: Amy
- Created on: 27-03-15 11:55
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- The Chivalry Thesis - Carol Smart
- Treating others, especially women, with courtesy, sympathy and respect
- Females are less likely to appear in crime statistics due to the agencies of social control being more lenient towards them
- This in turn gives an invalid picture that exaggerates the extent of gender differences in rates of offending.
- Females are less likely to appear in crime statistics due to the agencies of social control being more lenient towards them
- Evidence that supports this thesis:
- Graham and Bowling's research on 1721, 14-25 year olds using self report studies found although males were more likely to offend the difference was smaller than that of official statistics.
- Flood-Page et al found that 1 in 11 female self reported offenders had been cautioned or prosecuted, for males it was 1 in 7
- Ministry of Justice, 49% of females recorded as offending received a caution whereas only 30% of males did.
- Evidence against this thesis:
- Women's offences tend to be less serious and women are less likely to have a criminal record
- This suggests there is no systematic bias against women
- Farrington and Morris looked at 408 offences in Cambridge and found that in the case of serious offences, gender appeared to play no role.
- Women's offences tend to be less serious and women are less likely to have a criminal record
- Bias against women
- There is evidence that some women are treated differently than other women
- Carlen concludes that women who are considered good mothers are unlikely to be imprisoned whereas women who where considered bad mothers received harsher sentences.
- Heidensohn suggests that females are treated more harshly when they deviate from societal norms of femininity
- Women are more likely to escape with lighter sentences for motoring crimes yet crimes that offend what it is to be a woman get punished more harshly
- There is evidence that some women are treated differently than other women
- Treating others, especially women, with courtesy, sympathy and respect
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