Gender and crime

Sex role theory and gender socialisation

• Traditional roles housework and family management, greater risk of stigma and shame
• Gender socialisation encourages women to be caring, not aggresive and tough like men

Control theory, marginalisation and lack of opportunities

• Heidensohn - women the private sphere of the home, less opportunities for crime
• Women have controls such as responsibilities, supervision, fear of crime

Rational choice

• Carlen - encouraged to confrom by class and gender deals, most women accept deals
• If rewards are unlikely due to poverty, abustive partners etc, rational choice to commit crime

Chivalry thesis

• Paternalism or sexism in CJS, women treated more leniently, seen as less serious threat

Changing gender roles

• Adler - women have more independence and more successful (Liberation Thesis)
• Traditional forms of controls on women are weakening

'Laddette' culture

• Denscombe - more masculinised 'laddette' culture, where young women adopt behaviour traditionally associated with young men, as they assert their identity through binge drinking, gang culture, risk-taking and peer-related violence
• Police reacting in more serious way, prosecute females more

Sex role theory and gender socialisation

• Traditionally associated with role of breadwinner and independent, aggressive, tough
• More independence and opportunities to commit crime

Accomplishing and asserting masculinity

• Connell - hegemonic masculinity in society, male gender identity defines what a real man is
• Masculinity is a focal concern of lower w/c subculture
• Lyng - search for pleasure through risk-taking, on edge between security and danger

Police stereotyping

• Police more likely to see men than women as potential criminals, and more likely to press charges in the case of men
• Chivalry thesis disadvantages men

• Men may experience social pressure to achieve legitimate goals as 'breadwinners', therefore more likely to innovate to achive them
• Women are more likely to 'carry on regardless' as ritualists since they may be socialised to be less 'risk-taking'

• Focal concerns of young men are different from young women due to social constructions of masculinity and femininity
• Women may experience status frustration in a patriarchal society and turn to deviant activities in which they can gain status and esteem
• Cloward and Ohlin - young men have greater access to illegitimate opportunity structure, less socially controlled in the family/home
• McRobbie - girls more likely to participate in 'bedroom' subculture and girl-gangs less socially acceptable (double deviance)
• Miller - young men may be less able to control subterranean values as they have more opportunities to express them (public sphere)

• Men may participate in nocturnal economy in town centres more than women, especially between 9pm and 3am where there are large numbers of potential offenders and victims, and few agents of social control
• However, this may be changing as binge-drinking among women increases

• Acts committed by men may be more likely to be labelled deviant, as typical offender is male and typical conformist is female
• However, men have more influence and power to define an activity as a problem e.g. women as sex workers, shoplifters and drug mules
• Cicourel's concept of negotiated justice suggests that the police have discretion and gender may influence the decision about whether to stop, arrest and charge an individual

• Crime is a rational response to capitalism but women are more likely to be victims of male crime because they are the 'takers of ****' (Ansley)
• Hall's work on mugging suggests young black men are target by the police
• Malestream sociology has ignored women as victims and criminals
• Women are often seen as double deviants

• Young black men more likely to suffer relative deprivation and marginalisation which may lead to more crime and the formation of subcutural responses
• African Caribbean women may be less likely to participate in deviant subcultures as less marginalised or relitively deprived by virtue of better educational achievement and their importance and higher status in matrilocal families

• Loss of traditional family values, increased single parent families, welfare dependency and feminism / rejection of housewife role has led to 'Broken Britain' and increased crime amongst w/c men and women

• Malestream - Sociology that concentrates on men, is mostly carried out by men and assumes that the findings can be applied to women
• Rational choice - The gender deal and class deal encourages greater female conformity among most women, but those who are denied these advantages may choose crime
• Double deviance - Females face greater risks of social disapproval and of losing their reputation than men when they commit crime
• Sex role theory - There is tighter control of females by parents, or constraints of the housewife/mother role
• Public sphere - Men dominate the places and situations where most crime is committed, while women dominate the private sphere of the home, restricting their opportunities for crime
• Chivalry thesis - Some sociologists believe that women are treated more leniently, through paternalism, sexism and stereotyping in CJS, as women are seen as less of a threat than men
• Edgework - The thrills of risk-taking involved in minor crime provides a means for men to express their masculinity