Gender and Crime

Last Lesson Recap

Lesson Objectives

• To understand why there are gender differences in offending rates.

• To be able to explain sociological evidence for the reasons from different offending rates

• To evaluate these reasons and ways to reduce male offending

Starter

• Make a list of typical male and female crimes. Are their any similarities or differences? Are there more offences for males and females?

• Why do you think women are more likely to shoplift?

Facts• Most crime appears to be committed by males• Gender differences are the most significant

feature of recorded crimes• 4 out of 5 convicted offenders in England and

Wales are males• By 40 9% of females had a criminal conviction,

as against 32% of males

• Females more likely to be convicted of property offences than males (except burglary). Males more likely to be convicted of violence or sexual offences

• Males more likely to be repeat offenders, to have longer criminal careers and commit more serious crimes (15 x more likely to be convicted of homicide)

Task In small group, look at the statistics on gender and

offending sheet. Answer the questionsDo they tell the complete truth?

•Dark figure (a low amount of offences recorded for crimes against women)

•Who appears to commit the most crime? Any age differences?

•Chivalry factor (low amount of prison/not guilty convictions because of judges leniency towards

females?)

Do women commit more crime?

• Some Sociologists and Criminologists argue that they underestimate the amount of female as against to male offending. There are two explanations:

1. Female crimes such as shoplifting are less likely to be reported e.g. Property crime less likely to be noticed or reported than the violent or sexual crimes more often committed by men. Prostitution- more females than males- unlikely to be reported

2. Women less likely to be prosecuted and more likely to be let of lightly.

Research Task

• In groups you will create an information booklet/cards etc to explain your chosen topic

• You have the rest of this lesson and the whole of the next lesson (ICT room)

Lesson Objectives

• To understand why there are gender differences in offending rates.

• To be able to explain sociological evidence for the reasons from different offending rates

• To evaluate these reasons and ways to reduce male offending

Chivalry Thesis- women are less likely to be prosecuted

• Criminal Justice Agents- police, magistrates and judges are men. Men are socialised to act in a ‘chivalrous’ way towards women

• Otto Pollak (1950)- men have a protective attitude towards women- so they are unwilling to arrest them, charge, prosecute or convict them

• Female crime less likely to end up in official statistics- giving an invalid picture that exaggerates the extend of gender differences in offending rates

• Self-report studies show women are treated more leniently

Evidence For:• Graham & Bowling- showed differences between OS and self

report studies• Flood-Page et al- found that women who had admitted to

committing crimes were less likely to be charged compared to men• Hood- 3,000 defendants- women were about one third less likely to

be jailed in similar cases

Evidence Against:• Farrington & Morris – women are not sentenced more leniently for

comparable offences. Box (1981)- if women are treated leniently, may be because their sentences are less serious..also more likely to show remorse

• Buckle & Farrington- study of shoplifting witnessed twice as many males shoplifting- despite fact that OS are equal. Suggesting women shoplifters may be more likely to be prosecuted than males

Bias against women• Feminists argue that that the CJS is not biased in favour of

women, as the chivalry thesis claims but biased against them.

• They argue that the CJS treats women more harshly, especially when they deviate from gender norms of monogamous heterosexuality and motherhood

• Heidensohn- double standards- courts punish girls but not boys for promiscuous sexual activity

• Carlen- women are assessed more in terms of being wives, mothers and daughters. Less conventional girls are punished harsher. Scottish judges more likely to jail women whose children were in care than women who they saw as good mothers

• Feminists argue that these double standards exist because the CJS is patriarchal...most evident in the way rape cases are dealt with.

• Walklate- in rape cases it is the victim who is on trial, since she has to prove her respectability in order to have her evidence acepted

Activity• Compare the strength of feeling shown against Maxine Carr

with the level to which she was actually involved in the crime. • On the Internet, investigate accounts of the case of ‘Baby P’

and Tracey Connelly in 2009. How were the descriptions of Tracey Connelly in the press different from the way in which the male offenders (the actual killers) were treated? For example, the item in the Daily Express Tramp Tracey used-TV to mask son's screams

• What do these cases show about how women and men are seen, especially in cases involving children? Does our society expect higher moral standards of women than men? If so, why?

• How would sociologists explain this difference?

Explaining Female Crime

• Women in general do have lower rates of offending than men, how can we then explain the behaviour of those who do commit crimes?

• First explanations were biological rather than sociological. Lombroso & Ferrero suggest that criminality is innate but there are very few ‘born female criminals’.

• However the view is social rather than biological factors are the cause of gender differences: Sex Role Theory, Control Theory & Liberation Thesis

What is the Functionalist Sex Role Theory?

What is the Functionalist Sex Role Theory explanation?

AO2:Walklate criticises Parsons for assuming that because women are biologically capable of bearing children, they are best suited to the

expressive role. Parsons explanation based on biological assumption about sex differences rather

than gender differences

Feminists explain differences in terms of Patriarchy: Control and Liberation Thesis

Heidensohn: Patriarchal Control

• Heidensohn argues that women commit fewer crimes than men because patriarchal society imposes greater control over women, reducing their opportunities to offend. Patriarchal control operates at home, in public and at work.

• Control at home- Women's domestic roles imposes restrictions on their time and movement confining them to the house for long periods of time reducing opportunities to offend. Daughters subject to patriarchal control e.g. not ale to go out or stay out late, developing a bedroom culture (socialising at home) and required to do housework reducing opportunities to engaged in deviant behaviour on streets

• Control in public- Women fear sexual violence , Media reporting of rapes helps to frighten women into staying at home. Also a fear of being defined as not respectable (clothing, make up etc can create a bad reputation).

• Control at work- Women's subordinate positions at work reduces criminal opportunities . The ‘glass ceiling’ prevents women rising to senior positions where there are more ops for white collar crimes.

Carlen: Class and Gender Deals• Carlen studied 39 W/C women who had been

convicted of a range of crimes; 20 were in prison or youth custody. He suggests most convicted serious female criminals are W/C

• Carlen uses Hirschi’s control theory to explain female crime. Hirschi argues that humans act rationally and are controlled by being offered a ‘deal’ (rewards in return for conforming to norms). People commit crime if they don’t believe they will get rewards or if the rewards of crime appear greater than the risks

• Carlen argues that W/C women are generally led to conform through the promise of two ‘deals’:

• Class deal- women who work will get a decent standard of living

• Gender deal- women who conform to the conventional domestic gender role will gain the material and emotional rewards of family life

• In terms of the class deal, women in Carlen’s study had failed to find a legitimate way of earning a decent living. Most had always been in poverty; many could not find a job and had experience problems claiming benefits

• In terms of the gender deal, some had been abused by partners/fathers. Over half had spent time in care (breaking family bonds)

• They had gained nothing from either deal and so felt they had nothing to lose by using crime to escape from poverty

Liberation Thesis (Adler,1975)• As women become liberated from Patriarchy their

offending will become similar to men’s. Liberation is leading to a new type of female criminal and a rise in the female crime rate

• Patriarchal controls and discrimination have lessened and ops have become more equal as a result women have begun to adopt traditional male roles in both legitimate (work) and illegitimate spheres (crime)

• Women no longer just commit trad female crimes (e.g. shoplifting, prostitution).

• More women in senior positions giving them the opportunity to commit serious white collar crimes

Evaluation of Liberation Thesis

• Female crime rate began rising in 1950s – long before women’s liberation

• Most female criminals are working class – who have not been hit by women’s liberation

• Lind (1997) – women branching into ‘male’ crimes like drugs..but mainly due to links to prostitution (very unliberated lifestyle)

• Very little evidence of illegitimate opportunity structure of professional crime has opened up to women

Male Crime

• Evidence strongly suggests most offenders are males

• However what has been overlooked is what is it about being male that leads men to offend

• Focus on Masculinity as a way of explaining higher offending rates

• James Messerschmidt (1993)- masculinity is a social construct or ‘accomplishment’ and men have to constantly work at constructing and presenting it to others.

• Some men have more resources than others to draw upon

• Messerschmidt argues that different masculinities co-exist within society. Hegemonic masculinity is the dominant, prestigious form that most men wish to accomplish (what is it defined as?)

• Some men have Subordinated masculinities e.g. gay men who have no desire to accomplish hegemonic masculinity as well as lower class and some ethnic minority men who lack resources to do so

• C & D used as a resource that different men use for accomplishing masculinity

• Class and Ethnic Differences among youths lead to different forms of rule breaking to demonstrate masculinity (what are these differences?)

• M/C men too may use crime. The difference lies in the type of crime- M/C males commit white collar and corporate crime to accomplish hegemonic masculinity, poorer groups may use street robbery to achieve a subordinated masculinity

Criticisms of Messerschmidt• Is masculinity an explanations of crime or just a

description of male offenders? (e.g. Tough, controlling etc). He is in danger of a circular argument, that masculinity explains male crime (e.g. Violence) because they are crimes committed by males (who have violent characteristics)

• Messerschmidt doesn't explain why not all men use crime to accomplish masculinity

• He over-works the concept of masculinity to explain virtually all male crimes, from joy riding to embezzlement

Postmodernist ideas about masculinity

• Loss of traditional manual jobs in recent years. These helped working class men express masculinity

• Growth of night-time leisure economy that many men can gain legal employment form, criminal opportunities & express masculinity

• Winlow – study of bouncers in Sunderland showed this

• Organised criminal subculture emerging in nightlife economy – violence is a way to earn a living

•Reputation and employability depends on their bodily capital

•Body – symbol of worth – looking the part – signs of masculinity....(the sign is all – geek gets muscle and tats!)

•Winlow study shows how expression of masculinity changes with the move from a modern industrial society to a postmodern, industrial once.

•The change opens up new criminal opportunities for men who are able to use violence to express masculinity

Task

Using material from this handout and elsewhere, write a newspaper/magazine style article about young men and reasons for their criminal behaviour.

Include reference to ‘fictional characters’ that you go out observing and interview – like the Moss Side Story)

Quick Check Questions

Page 108

Exam Question: Assess the value of ‘chivalry thesis’ in understanding gender differences in crime

Gender and crime

Key facts

Girls and women appear to commit less crime.

4/5 convicted offenders in Britain are male.

Women more likely to be convicted of theft and property offences.

Men more likely to convicted of violence and sexual offences.

The Chivalry thesis

This argues that most police, judges and magistrates are men and men are socialised to be chivalrous to women. Roger Hood found women are 1/3 less likely to be jailed than men in similar cases.

Feminism

They argue the criminal justice system is patriarchal and is bias against women when they step outside gender roles. Women are judged more harshly for having promiscuous sex and being bad mothers rather than the seriousness of their crimes. This is what happens in rape cases where the victims sexual activity is always on trial.

Explanations for female criminality

Functionalist -Sex role theory

The way girls are socialised to be quiet and demur doesn’t encourage them to behave aggressively or break the law.

Feminist - Control theory

Women commit less crimes because men control women through domestic roles, fear of being a victim and financial dependence.

Liberation thesis

Freda Alder (1975) argues that if feminists are right and women only commit less crime because of patriarchy then greater equality should see a rise in women offenders. This equality will bring about more female offenders for violence and white collar crime.

Gender and crime Why do men commit crime?

James Messerschmidt (1993) makes a link between male offending and masculinity. He says all men want the dominant hegemonic masculinity which is achieved through domination of work, women and sexuality. He argues that lower class men and ethnic minorities lack the resources to achieve this masculinity so commit crime in order to achieve it.

Postmodernity and masculinity

Others have suggested that previously jobs in manufacturing allowed men to express their masculinity. An increase in service sector jobs like bouncers allows men to express their masculinity through violence, drug dealing and racketeering.

Women demonised in the media

Myra Hindley

Sentenced to 30 years in prison for her part in the murder and torture of 5 children along with Ian Brady. The media widely reported her true crime as not having any motherly instincts as a women. Newspapers still to this day publish a sinister picture taken of her 30 years ago because it portrays her as a cold sadistic killer.

Maxine Carr

Was convicted and sent to prison for providing a false alibi for boyfriend Ian Huntley who murdered Holly wells and Jessica Chapman in 2002. Maxine had nothing directly to do with the murders but many protested for reintroduction of the death penalty outside the court. The media had a definitive role in demonising Maxine Carr by producing sensationalist stories of her past.

EXPLANATION KEY ARGUMENT/POINTS/THINKERS

CRITIQUE

Gender socialisationParsons•Boys are raised to be active/aggressive/risk taking•Boys reject feminine gender roles in nuclear family•Boys role model is breadwinner – outside home

•Compensatory compulsory masculinity – aggression and anti-social behaviour to prove they are men!

Cohen•Lack of male role model - so boys turn to street gangs for masculine identity (toughness etc)

New Right (Dennis/Murray)•Absence of father figure – boys turn to gangs for status

Social control • Boys are less controlled than girls – more freedom• Boys dominate public spaces• Boys have more opportunity to commit crime ‘on

the street’• Boys are pressurised to be risky and reputation is

not an issue..being ‘hard’ is