CRIME AND GENDER

Gender and Crime

What official statistics show;

• Women commit far fewer crimes than men.
• The types of crimes that are committed by males and females tend to be different.
• The crime rate for women is increasing more rapidly than the rate is for men.

Feminist theory;

Malestream sociology;

• Suggests that male sociologists only focus on society from a male's perspective.
• Suggests that male sociologists focus on male victims and offenders and see crime by women as insignificant and unworthy of study.
• Radical feminists see crime and its responses to it as reinforcing patriarchal ideology.
• Suggests that we cannot know the true extent of crime and gender when women have been ignored from sociological studies.
• Heidensohn describes vicarious identification- he argues what interests males are what is studied.
• Sociologists may have studied males because the rate of crime committed by them has always been much higher.

Women receive different treatment when caught;

• Heidensohn studies of the police suggest that male police officers treat female offenders in a paternalistic fashion.
• Carlen points out that the courts will be less inclined to imprison females who conform to the feminine stereotype in looks and dress. He also indicates that those who challenge conventional femininity (child abusers, lesbians) are prone to harsher punishment.
• Abbot and Wallace argue that girls who show sexual promiscuity are more likely to be put in care for protection.
• Pollak's chivalry thesis suggests that because women are seen to be subordinate, caring and weak they are thought to be incapable of malicious crime.
• Campbell argues from self-report studies that the ratio of male to female juvenile crime was almost equal. Campbell claims that the disparity is due to the held stereotype that women are law-abiding.
• Research shows that the courts use domestic responsibilities to explain crimes like…