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Gender Patterns in crime

Most crime is committed by male. Four out of five convicted offenders are male. Among offenders, a higher proportion of females are convicted of property offences, while a higher proportion of males are convicted of violent or sexual offences. Males are more likely to commit serious crime. Stats raise three important questions:

Do women really commit fewer crimes, or are the figures an invalid picture of the gender patterns of crime?

How can we explain why those women who do offend?

Why do males commit more crimes than females?

Do women commit more crime?

Sociologists argue that stats underestimate the amount of female as against male offending. Two arguments have been put forward in support of this view.

Typically female crimes such as shop lofting are less likely to be reported. For example, property crime is less likely to be noticed to be noticed or reported than the violent or sexual crimes more often committed by men. Similarly, prostitution- which females are much more likely than males to engage in- is unlikely to be reported by either party.

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 relatively lightly.

The Chivalry Thesis

The second argument presented is known as the chivalry thesis. The thesis argues that most criminal justice agents- such as police officers, magistrates and judges- are men, and men are socialised to act in a 'chivalrous' way towards women.

For example Pollak argues that men have a protective attitude towards women and that men hate to accuse women, police officers dislike to arrest them, district attorneys to prosecute them, judges and juries to find them guilty, and so on.

Therefore the criminal justice system is more likely to be more lenient with women and so their crimes are less likely to end up in the official stats. This in turn gives them an invalid picture that exaggerates the extent of gender differences in rates of offending.

The chivalry thesis has been hotly debated. Evidence from some self report studies- where individuals are asked about what crimes they have committed- does suggests that female offenders are treated more leniently. For example Graham and Bowling's research on a sample of 1,721 14-25 year olds found that although males were more likely to offend, the difference was smaller than that recorded in the official stats.

Similarly Hood study of over 3,000 defendants found that women were about one-third less likely to be jailed in similar cases.

Evidence again the Chivalry Thesis

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