Gender and Crime

Question 1

Which gender are likely to be repeat offenders?

Answer 1

Males

Question 2

Which gender are more likely to commit violent or sexual crimes?

Answer 2

Males

Question 3

Which gender are more likely to commit property crimes (except burglary)?

Answer 3

Women

Question 4

What are the two arguments put forward by sociologists in support of the view that statistics underestimate the amount of female offending as against male offending?

Answer 4

1) Typically female crimes such as shoplifting are less likely to be reported
2) Even when women’s crimes are detected or reported, they are less likely to be prosecuted or, if prosecuted, more likely to be let off lightly

Question 5

What is the chivalry thesis?

Answer 5

The argument that most criminal justice agents - police, magistrates, judges - are men, and men are socialised to act in a chivalrous way towards womwn

Question 6

What does the chivalry thesis believe about official statistics and why?

Answer 6

They under-represent female crime because men are less likely to prosecute or arrest women

Question 7

What evidence did Graham and Bowling find that supports the chivalry thesis?

Answer 7

They found that although males were more likely to offend, the difference was smaller than that recorded in official statistics

Question 8

What did Hood’s study of over 3,000 defendants find?

Answer 8

That women were about 1/3 less likely to be jailed in similar cases to men.

Question 9

What did Farrington and Morris’ study find that goes against the findings of Hood’s study, and so goes against the chivalry thesis?

Answer 9

That in his study of 408 cases of theft in a magistrates’ court he found that women were not sentenced more leniently for comparable offences

Question 10

Give 2 criticisms of the chivalry thesis.

Answer 10

1) Box’s review of self-report studies concludes that women who commit serious offences are not treated more leniently
2) Women offenders are more likely to show remorse, this may help to explain why they receive a caution instead of going to court

Question 11

What do many feminists argue about the criminal justice system?

Answer 11

That it is biased against women

Question 12

When does Heidensohn argue that the courts treat females more harshly?

Answer 12

When they deviate from gender norms

Question 13

How does Heidonsohn argue that the courts present double standards?

Answer 13

Courts punish girls for promiscuous behaviour, but do not punish boys

Question 14

What does Carlen argue about why women are jailed?

Answer 14

She says that women are judged by the court’s assessment of them as wives, mothers and daughters, less for the seriousness of their crime

Question 15

Where do feminists believe that patriarchy is seen most in cases?

Answer 15

In rape cases

Question 16

How are women victimised in rape cases?

Answer 16

By being blamed for the rape themselves

Question 17

What does Walklate argue about rape cases?

Answer 17

That it is not the defendant that is on trial, but the victim, since she has to prove her respectability in order to be believed.

Question 18

How does Parson’s sex role theory explain deviance in boys?

Answer 18

• Men take the instrumental, breadwinner role which is performed largely outside the home.
• This means that boys do not have easy access to a male role model
• This leads to boys engaging in ‘compensatory compulsory masculinity’ through aggression and anti-social behaviour

Question 19

According to Cohen, what does the lack of an adult male role model mean for young boys?

Answer 19

That they are more likely to turn to all-male street gangs as a source of masculine identity

Question 20

How does the sex role theory suggest that women remain passive?

Answer 20

Because they perform the expressive role and stay at home, taking the main responsibility for socialising children, this allows young girls to identify with their mother and so leads to them being effectively socialised

Question 21

Why does Walklate criticise the sex role theory?

Answer 21

Because Parsons assumes that because women have the biological capacity to bear children, that they are better suited to the role

Question 22

What does Heidonsohn argue is the reason as to why women commit less crime?

Answer 22

Patriarchal control

Question 23

What are the three types of control that Heidonsohn talks about?

Answer 23

1) Control at home
2) Control in public
3) Control at work

Question 24

How are women controlled at home that prevents them from committing crime?

Answer 24

• Women’s domestic role is a constant round of childcare and housework and this imposes severe restrictions on time and reduces their opportunities to offend
• Women who try to reject their domestic role may find that their partners try to force it on them, perhaps through domestic violence
• Men also exercise control through financial means, through denying women money for leisure activities

Question 25

How are women controlled in public?

Answer 25

• Women are controlled in public through the threat of male violence against them, for example women avoid going out at night to avoid attack
• Sensationalist media reporting of rapes adds to women’s fear
• Females are also controlled in public through fear of being deemed as not respectable

Question 26

How are women controlled at work?

Answer 26

• Women’s behaviour is controlled at work by male supervisors and managers, e.g. sexual harassment is widespread and helps to keep women in their place
• Women’s subordinate position prevents them from engaging in major criminal activity at work, the ‘glass ceiling’ prevents many women from rising to a senior position where there is greater opportunity to commit fraud

Question 27

How does Carlen explain female crime?

Answer 27

Working-class women are led to conform through the compromise of two deals - the class deal and the gender deal - and if these deals do not follow through, women commit crime

Question 28

Explain the class deal

Answer 28

Women who work will be offered material rewards, with a decent standard of living and leisure activities

Question 29

Explain the gender deal

Answer 29

Patriarchal ideology promises women material and emotional rewards from family life by conforming to the norms of a conventional domestic gender role

Question 30

What did the women who did not receive the class and gender deal come to the conclusion of?

Answer 30

That ‘crime was the only route to a decent standard of living. They had nothing to lose and everything to gain’.

Question 31

What does Carlen conclude about female crime?

Answer 31

That poverty and being brought up in care or an oppressive family were the two main causes of their criminality

Question 32

What does Messerschmidt see crime and deviance as?

Answer 32

Resources that men use to display their masculinity

Question 33

How do white middle-class youths demonstrate masculinity?

Answer 33

• They have to subordinate themselves to teachers in order to achieve a middle-class status
• They gain masculinity outside of school by drinking, pranking and vandalising

Question 34

How do white working-class youths demonstrate masculinity?

Answer 34

• Less chance of educational success so they display masculinity inside and outside of school
• Their masculinity is constructed around sexist attitudes, being tough and opposing teachers’ authrities

Question 35

How do black lower-class youths demonstrate masculinity?

Answer 35

• Have few expectations of a reasonable job

- Use gang membership and violence to express their masculinity

Question 36

Who talks about the liberation thesis?

Answer 36

Adler

Question 37

What does Adler say that women’s liberation has led to?

Answer 37

A new type of female crime and a rise in the female crime rate

Question 38

Changes in the structure in society have led to what changes in women’s offending?

Answer 38

Women have begun to adopt traditionally ‘male’ role in both legitimate and illegitimate activity

Question 39

What crimes do women no longer commit?

Answer 39

Traditionally ‘female’ crimes, such as shoplifting and prostitution

Question 40

Why have women stopped committing ‘female’ crimes?

Answer 40

Because of their greater self-confidence and assertiveness, and the fact that they now have greater opportunities in the legitimate structure

Question 41

What evidence supports the liberation thesis?

Answer 41

Between the 1950s and the 1990s, the female share of offences rose from 1 in 7 to 1 in 6

Question 42

Give 3 criticisms of the liberation thesis

Answer 42

1) The female crime rate began rising in the 1950s, long before women’s liberation in the 1960s
2) Most female criminals are working-class, the group least likely to be influenced by women’s liberation, which had benefitted middle-class women much more
3) Women are branching out into more typically male crime, such as dealing with drugs, however this is usually because of their link with prostitution, a highly ‘unliberated’ offence