Gender and crime

Gender and crime

1. in 2002 80% of known offenders were men.

2. Chivalry thesis, justice system more lenient to women bc police and judges are socialised to aced chivalrously to women

   • POLLAK argues men have a protective attitude to women, unwilling to arrest/prosecute, crimes are less likely to end in offical tatistics. women are positively labelled by male ages of social control
   • HOOD study of over 3000 defendants found women were 1/3 less likely to be jailed in similar cases to men
   • Farrington and morris study of sentencing of offences of theft in magistrates court found that women were not sentences more leniently for comparable offences

3. HEIDENSOHNS patriarchal control theory, women commit fewer crime bc society imposes greater on them reducing their opportunities. this operates everywhere.

   • Womens domestic role, housework, childcare, severe restrictions on their time and movement, confined to house for long periods reduced opportunities
   • Men impose role on women through thread of domestic violence
   • Daughters also restrictd going out staying out creating bedroom culture
   • Deterministic, assume all women who are oppressed would commit crime if they had the time

4. Liberation thesis, ADLER argues as women become more liberated from patriarchal control their offending will become similar to mens leading to a new type of female criminal adn the rise in female crime

   • Changes in structureof society lead to changes in womens offending behaviour, education and work became more equal women able to adopt men roles, women no longer commit traditional female crimes theft and prostitution, bc of womens greater confidence and assertiveness
   • criticised for failing to explain w/c crime, CHELSEY LIND found that in the uca poor women are more likely than liberated women to be criminals, most female criminals are w/c as these women are the least like to be influences by womens liberated which benefited m/c women - liberation theory more valid to m/c than w/c

5. MESSERSCHMIDT, boys in the uk are socialised into hegemonic masculine value system that stresses differences from women, masculinity is an accomplishment that men have to work at contructing and presenting to other all the time

   • HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY, dominant form one most men want to get, defined through paid work, ability to control women everywhere and heterosexuality
   • SUBORDINATED MASCULINITY, men of lower class, ethnic minority and homosexuals lack the resourses to accomplish hegemonic masculinity s they turn to crime such as rape and murder
   • Lack of application to all men, suggests that men use crime to accomplish masculinity, however not all men do this, therefore not representitive of all crime committed by all men