Exam Answer One
Critically assess the impact of feminism on our understanding of crime and criminal
justice.
There is considerable debate over the extent to which feminism has affected the whole
of society. Those who suggest that feminism has substantially affected society would
point to the growth in the levels of female employment, the increase in the
representation of women in parliament, and the evidence of improved performance of
women in education. Others, though, would suggest that despite some changes in the
realms of politics, economics and civil society, women still experience substantial
disadvantage in terms of pay, security of employment, and representation in the upper
echelons of the elite positions of society. In short, a discussion of the extent to which
women are now experiencing greater equality in society is unlikely to produce
unambiguous answers, so the secondary consideration of whether any gains are
actually due to the impact of a social and political programme identified as
‘feminism’ is additionally problematic. This essay will address these debates within
the realm of crime, criminal justice and criminology, and will consider three specific
areas: the understanding of the female offender; the experience of women within the
criminal justice system, and the impact of feminist theory on criminological theory.
The feminist critique of criminological theories of the female offender is considered
by many as the starting point of the critique of what Walklate has referred to as
‘malestream’ criminology. The target of most criticism was the essentialist and
biological determinist basis of the attempts to understand female criminality. The
early positivist criminology were characterised by attempts to identify the causes of
criminality in terms of observed physical differences between criminals and noncriminals. Lombroso, arguably the best known of the biological positivist, identified
criminality as being associated with under-evolution: criminals were less civilised and
represented an ‘atavistic’ throwback to an earlier, less developed for of human
civilisation. His study, with Ferraro, of ‘The Female Offender’ attempted to explain
why women, who were seen as less civilised than men, were underrepresented in the
criminal population: their conclusion was that female criminals actually possessed a
range of male characteristics, and represented an unattractive prospect as sexual
partners: the result was that female criminality was ‘bred out’.
The flaws in the biological positivists are not small in number, identifying problems
with logic, methodology and theory, and as an explanation of male criminality, were
widely rejected by academic considerations of male offending and replaced by
theories such as strain, anomie and subculture. This, though, did not mean that
biology and sexuality were not cited as a source of explanation for female criminality.
Otto Pollak, for example, attempted to explain why women were so much in the
minority in official depictions of crime: he published his study “The criminality of
women” in 1950, and as Heidensohn notes, is remarkably unaffected by the dominant
criminological focus on discussions of strain, subculture and economic inequality.
Pollak’s basic theory is that women’s criminality is actually no less than men’s, but
just simply more covert: women “by nature” are more secretive, particularly in the
ways in which issues of female sexuality, reproduction and childbirth are largely
taboo, and the expectation of women, therefore, is to keep such aspects of their life
hidden and away from the public gaze. Having developed an intrinsically secretive
nature, women then become adept in keeping their criminality hidden as well. In this
task, Pollak argues, women are actually assisted in chivalrous attitudes amongst men,
and in particular the men. Again, we see the use of issues to do with biology and
sexuality coming to the fore, in a way that had to all intents and purposes had been
rejected in the study of male crime.
The impact of feminism in this area was to highlight the inadequacies of such
determinist thinking. In its place, theorists like Freda Adler, Carol Smart and Francis
Heidensohn attempted to explain women’s criminality with reference to the structural
position that women found themselves in, rather than the essential differences cited
above. By and large, the question these theorists set themselves was to explain the
almost universal finding that women’s criminality occurred at a considerably lower
level than men’s. Adler argued that the relative under-representation of women in the
criminal world reflected the relative under-representation of women in the legitimate
world of work. The same sexist assumptions that guide women’s recruitment into
legitimate work (e.g. lack of physical strength, constructions of female nature as
caring and nurturing etc.) make women less commonly recruited into areas of
criminal enterprise. Adler, though, argues that the ‘liberation’ of women (hence
‘Liberation Theory’) brought about by the women’s movement of the 1960s and
1970s has produced a loosening of the constraint on women, and this is reflected in
the criminal and the non-criminal employment of women. To a large extent, Adler is
predicting the future, and suggested that the years after she published her key text (),
evidence of female criminality would show high levels of offending, more “career”
offending and higher levels of violence. While liberation theory has been subject to
some criticism, mainly around the estimates of the impact of the feminist movement,
it does represent an important departure from theories of women’s offending that used
assumptions about the biological differences between the sexes, and instead addressed
the lived experiences of men and women.
Another important area to consider is the impact that feminist campaigning has had on
the criminal justice system. It is probably fair to say that this is an area where the
gains of feminism are more obvious than in the purely theoretical realm. The
women’s movement was a prime mover in the campaigns addressing gendered
violence: in particular against rape and domestic violence, but also in more general
terms in the victims’ movement. Organisations such as Women’s Aid which
campaign and organise refuges for sufferers of domestic violence, and Rape Crisis
which campaign to highlight the issues around sexual victimisation have successfully
raised the public and political awareness of violent and sexual crime against women.
More specifically, gains have been made in terms of the policing of domestic
violence: the days of minimisation of responses to “only a domestic” have to a great
extent been replaced by, at least formally, a commitment to assumptions of arresting
the accused if a complaint of domestic violence is made, and a Act of parliament that
actually names domestic violence explicitly. In relation to sexual assault and rape,
there have also been similar positive moves brought about by the consciousness
raising and specific feminist campaigns that have seen greater constraint place on the
use of victims’ previous sexual history in rape trials, greater consideration of the
needs of victims in the trials associated with sexual crime, and a greater level of
specific training and provision of specialist services for victims when making an
initial complaint to the police. In a wider focus, feminists (eg. Elizabeth Stanko) have
been highly influential in highlighting the ways in which a political, professional and
media emphasis on the overt, public arena of crime has underplayed the private
dangers and risks experienced by women, children and elderly people in particular,
have mitigated against the interests of particularly vulnerable groups in society.
The limited nature of the impact of the feminist movement is, perhaps ironically, most
clearly highlighted by the feminist movement themselves. Feminist criminologists,
such as Liz Kelly, have highlighted the continued, and indeed worsening problem of
attrition in the criminal justice response to rape and sexual assault: in brief, this refers
to the process by which complaints made to the police are reduced in number at every
stage in the process of prosecution (for example, the decision to record a crime, the
decision to pass the case to the Crown Prosecution Service, the decision to take a case
to court, the decision to convict etc.), which results in approximately 5% of initial
complaints resulting in a conviction for rape.
In summing up, it is difficult to conclude that feminism has unambiguously resolved
the issues it set itself. Theoretically, feminism has highlighted the inadequacies of
‘malestream’ theorising of female crime, but it is difficult to demonstrate a particular
strong theoretical alternative in this area. As a critique, feminism is a strong
theoretical school, tirelessly targeting gender biased assumptions and constructions of
gender, sexuality and criminality, but the reliance on the conception of patriarchy runs
some of the same risks of circular reasoning that Marxism has suffered in relation to
capitalism (i.e. every social ill is ‘explained’ as being caused and causing patriarchy /
capitalism). In the policy realm, the campaigning of the women’s movements has had
a huge impact, but continued problems that women as victims experience, suggests
that the challenges of overcoming entrenched assumptions and interests may have
many more hurdles and obstacles to overcome to achieve a situation where a suspect,
an offender and a victim is dealt with by the criminal justice system without an gender
related bias.
Exam Answer Two
Critically assess the impact of feminism on our understanding of crime and criminal
justice.
Women form a small proportion of offenders: this is confirmed by studies that have
looked at the level of self-report offending as well as the figures of men and women
who come to the official recognition of the criminal justice system. Gender is clearly
a vital aspect of why people offend, and in this essay, I will look at this in a variety of
areas that demonstrate a strong gender pattern in offending.
In general terms, Home Office figures suggest that there are around 5 times as many
male offenders as female offenders. The figures suggest that this ratio has narrowed to
some extent, and that there has been a rise, in particular, in violent offending by
young women. The figures of the use of prison for young female offenders, in
particular have shown a huge rise, reflecting the seriousness of female offending.
These changes, though, have not made a huge impact on the gender differential: men
still represent the vast majority of violent and sexual offenders, of burglars, and of
those committing almost all serious crime. The only crimes that show a majority of
women as offenders were prostitution and television licence evasion.
Why do women offend at a lesser extent? Hirschi’s ‘control theory’ argues that people
who have a lower level of commitment to social roles in relation to family, work,
education and community are more likely to offend, and women, in particular have,
through roles associated with motherhood and other community commitments are
therefore less likely to offend.
Freda Adler’s “Liberation Theory” argues that women are becoming more likely to
offend as the social control associated with patriarchal society becomes lessened by
the advances of the feminist movement, which would explain why female offending
has increased.
Early criminologists, such as Lombroso, have been heavily criticised. Lombroso, a
positivist, sought to explain the difference between offenders and non-offenders. In
order to do this, he took a series of measurements of body shape, and used phrenology
to symbolise the causes of offending. Women, it was argued, were less developed
than men, and were therefore less likely to offend.
Later theories, such as Pollak, saw the causes of the difference between the levels of
male and female offending as due to women’s offending being hidden by the
chivalrous nature of policing. The police, a predominantly male institution, were seen
as deliberately ignoring and under-emphasising the deviance of women. Together
with an inherent “deviousness” that characterises women, the net result is that equal,
or possibly higher levels of deviance amongst women are hidden from view.
Media awareness of female criminality has reached the levels of ‘moral panic’. The
media have chosen to focus on a range of specifically female criminality: girl gangs,
binge drinking and child murderers have all been highlighted by recent media
coverage. Researchers have questioned, for example, whether the media portrayal of
Myra Hindley, the so-called “Moors Murderer” was biased against her: the question
raised, prior to her death, was should she still be in prison, when many other child
killers had been released after serving a shorter sentence. The way in which the media
chose to demonised and dehumanise Hindley has been seen to emphasis particular
aspect of her case, in particular the aspect of ‘double deviance’ which argues that
women criminals are seen as breaking two social norms – that of the criminal code,
and also the norm of ‘feminity’: women are expected to have caring and nurturing
personalities, so Hindley was treated more harshly than a male murderer would have
been.
Other studies, though, have suggested that there is very little evidence of different
treatment for women and men when it comes to sentencing in court. Farrington and
Painter investigated the patterns of sentencing in courts, and found that in general,
women received lower sentences. They found, though, women in general were
committing lower levels of repeat, violent and serious offences, and were less likely
to be repeat offenders. Once this was taken into account, the sex of the suspect did not
seem to have a big effect in deciding the sentence that someone received. This would
suggest a different story to that expressed in the ‘double deviance’ theory noted
above.
Another area that has been highlighted is the representation of women within the
criminal justice system. Women now account for only around a fifth of the police
force, and this figure is increasing all the time: back in the 1970s, the figure was much
lower, with only around 1 in 12 of police officers being female. The pattern of senior
police officers is also heavily biased in favour of men: only 6 out of 43 Chief Police
Officers are women, though this does represent a huge advance over the position in
the 1990s when the first ever female Chief Police officer was appointed. In the legal
profession, the pattern of gender inequality is more marked: although 49% of
magistrates are female, no female Law Lords have ever been appointed. Perhaps it is
surprising that a greater bias in sentencing isn’t noted.
In conclusion, feminism has had a huge impact on the study of crime and criminal
justice. It is impossible now to ignore the issue of women criminals, and a huge
amount of work has been done of the victimisation of women. The criminal justice is
slowly changing with a greater representation of women in a lot of areas, though these
tend to be the less senior ranks. There is, undoubtedly more work to be done, though.