Gender and Crime
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Introduction
Official Crime Statistics (OCR) revealed how recorded
crime appears to be a masculine activity (87% of all
recorded crime).
Victorians explained women’s conformity with biological
theory, sociologists favour socialisation, social control and
postmodern concept of ‘transgression’.
Crime, delinquency and deviance is viewed as a (workingclass) “male thing”, that usually ends as they ‘settle down’.
However, the growth of laddette behaviour is challenging
the implied links between deviance and masculinity.
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Frances Heidensohn
Frances Heidensohn (1985) notes how
female crime was either invisible or
sociologists assumed stereotypical ideas
on females. She suggests 4 reasons:
Male dominance of offenders
Male domination of sociology
Sociological theorizing
Vicarious identification (what interests male sociologists is
exciting [male] rebellion)
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Gender and Crime
3 questions we need to address in order to ascertain if women
are less criminal than men:
Are there
differences in the
amount of crime
committed by men
and women?
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Is there any
Are there
evidence that
differences in the
women’s crime has
kinds of crime
changed in either
committed by men
amount or
and women?
kind?
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Theories of Gender and Crime
Frances Heidensohn (1985) suggests that the question we
should be asking is not why some women commit crime,
but why women are so non-criminal?
She considers three explanations:
Biological
Theory
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Sex-role
Theory
Transgression
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Biological Theory
The origins of this theory go back to Victorian
ideas such as Cesare Lombroso (left).
It argues that 'normal' females have a
disposition that repels them from deviant and
criminal behaviour.
This theory has little support in
sociology, although a link between
female crime and hormonal and
menstrual factors has been made.
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Sex-role Theory (Socialization)
From infancy, children are socialized
that the two sexes are different.
Female roles contain such elements
as caring, passivity, and domesticity.
Male roles, on the other hand, stress elements of toughness,
aggressiveness and sexual conquest.
It is argued that females generally lack the values that are
typically associated with delinquency. However, laddette
behaviour challenges this.
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Sex-role Theory (continued)
Even with shoplifting
and prostitution it is
argued these express
socialised roles of
family provider on the
one hand and sexual
provider on the other.
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Social Control
Frances Heidensohn (1985) says women
commit so few crimes because of the
ways in which they are ideologically
controlled.
Firstly in the way in which societies are
cemented together by a shared value
system.
Secondly in the way bonding occurs
within relationships of family, the peer
group, and the school.
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Pat Carlen and Control Theory
Frances Heidensohn argues most women
conform because failure to do results in
labelling as unfeminine behaviour.
Pat Carlen (1985) has adopted control
theory located in 'class deals' and 'gender
deals'.
Females who are most likely to become
criminal are those who have not had, or
have rejected, the 'gender deal'.
Females who have been in care, thrown out of home, or have
rejected 'normal' family life, are the most likely to be lawbreakers.
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Crime and Deviance Chapter 13
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Lack of Opportunities
There was an assumption that because
women were confined to the private
world with limited access to the public
world they lacked opportunity for crime.
However, this situation is changing, with
women occupying roles in the workplace
and public life.
Women still have less opportunity for crimes but Wilkinson
found in California that where women were equal to men,
they were engaged in similar levels of white-collar crime.
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Transgression
Adopting a Postmodernist approach
Carol Smart (1990) introduced the
concept of 'transgressive criminology‘.
In order to understand crime in a
Postmodernist society, transgression
takes us beyond the boundaries of
conventional criminology.
It considers ideas as diverse as selfimposed curfews; treatment of women
as victims; domestic violence, abuse
and rape.
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‘Chivalry’ Factor
Some argue women are more deviant
than they appear and are protected by a
‘chivalry factor‘ by police, courts, etc.
Hilary Allen (1987) argues mental health
explanation (including PMS) for female
criminality results in lighter punishments
by the courts.
However, Eileen Leonard (1982)
challenges the 'chivalry factor‘ pointing
out how ‘bad women’ are treated more
harshly than some men.
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A02 Exam Evaluation Point
Factors that label a woman as ‘bad’ include anything that
implies she is a ‘bad Mother’ (neglect, abuse, children in
care, etc.) or promiscuous (prostitute, teenage mother,
children from several fathers, etc.
Such women seem to be treated quite harshly by the
agents of social control because they do not conform to
expected norms of femininity.
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Female Crime Statistics
Whilst they commit less than men,
women commit all types of offences.
Women’s property crime is motivated
by economic factors (just like men).
Women fear and feel the impact of
the stigma of the ‘criminal’ label.
Quantitative and
qualitative evidence
suggests:
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Women offenders are seen as
'doubly deviant' - for breaking social
rules, and being viewed as
‘unfeminine’.
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Will Women’s Crime Rise?
Freda Adler (1975) believes that
women’s liberation will increase
women’s participation in criminal
activity.
Her evidence is partly based on a
growth of juvenile crime by (liberated)
girls.
Just as they are penetrating the labour
market, so they are moving also into
‘criminal careers’.
However, Carol Smart (1979) criticises Adler on the grounds
that she (wrongly) sees juvenile delinquency as reflective of
future adult crime
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Crime and Deviance Chapter 13
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Rise in Women’s Crime
Stephen Box feels that any increase in women’s
property crime has more to do with poverty
(especially as lone-parents) than their liberation.
He also found a relationship between the
increasing employment of women police officers
and the recording of violent crime by women.
He suggests the authorities have also been
‘sensitized’, resulting in female crimes of
violence becoming more likely to be recorded.
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James Messerschmidt
James Messerschmidt (1993, pictured
left) argues there is a 'normative
masculinity' (what a real man should
be), highly valued by most men.
He argues that masculinity is
something males have to constantly
work at.
A businessman can achieve masculinity through the exercise
of power over women in the workplace, whereas a man with
no power at work may express his masculinity through control
of women in the domestic situation – e.g. domestic violence.
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Messerschmidt: Middle-class Males
Middle-class boys achieve educational
success but at the expense of
emasculation.
In school they adopt an
'accommodating masculinity',
But compensate for this out of school
by adopting a more 'oppositional
masculinity': engaging in pranks,
excessive drinking and 'high spirits'.
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Messerschmidt: Working-class Males
Working-class males adopt an
'oppositional masculinity', both inside
and outside school, which is more
aggressive in nature.
Young Black males can be sucked
into property and violent crime as
ways of enhancing 'hegemonic
masculinity‘ (Bob Connell).
Messerschmidt notes how rape and pimping is sometimes
used to express control over women.
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Aggressive Masculinity
Men may express their masculinity
through criminal behaviour, e.g.
fighting, football hooliganism, etc.
Bea Campbell (1993) argues young
men seek compensation for lack of
breadwinner status through
'aggressive masculinity'.
The forms of masculinity adopted involve control over
technology (stolen cars); over public space (the streets);
violence against the 'other' (Asian shopkeepers and women).
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Crime and Deviance Chapter 13
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Enjoyment of Deviance
Katz (1988) argues that criminology has
failed to understand the role of pleasure
in committing crime.
This search for pleasure is meaningful
when equated within masculinity’s stress
upon status, control over others, and
success.
Violent crime is 'seductive' undertaken for chaos, thrill and
potential danger.
AO2 Point: Compare to Postmodernist search for thrills and to
Walter B. Miller’s focal concern of ‘excitement’.
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Women as Victims
A significant proportion of criminal activity
consists of crimes against women.
The majority of such crime is carried out by
men and includes the use of violence.
25% of serious violence takes place within
the home, ironically the place where
women feel most secure.
1 in 4 women are victims of domestic
violence, 1 in 10 each year.
Such crimes against women are subject to
significant underreporting.
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Domestic Violence
Betsy Stanko (2000) found an act of
domestic violence is committed every 6
seconds in Britain.
It is estimated that a quarter of all violent
crimes committed are "domestics“.
In 45-70% of cases, the father inflicts
violence on the children as well as the
mother (BMA Report, 1998).
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BMA Report on Domestic
Violence (1998)
More than 1 in 4 women experience
domestic violence in their lives.
1 in 10 women experience domestic
violence every year.
Violence ranges from being punched,
choked, bitten, burning, starving and
knifing, to being forced to have sex
against their will.
Domestic violence is more likely to occur
during pregnancy.
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Meanings of Domestic Violence
Public admission of the violence
present in their family can make
women feel a strong sense of failure.
Support for battered partners is not
always forthcoming from police,
family, friends, or the welfare
services.
The police traditionally regarded
‘domestics’ as private matters and
reluctant to intervene.
From 1990s the Home Office have instructed the police to
treat domestic violence the same as any form of violence.
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Key Factors in Explaining Women
as Victims
The relationship between crime and the wider patriarchal
social control of women in society.
Traditional gender role socialisation (male = dominant).
The link between the ‘crisis of masculinity’ (powerlessnes at
work, divorce, unemployment) and crimes against women.
Men’s reaction to the feminisation of the labour force and the
growing economic and cultural power of women
The sexual objectification of women: women as property.
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In evaluating the ‘women as victims’ situation reference
should be made to the significant contribution of feminism
in raising our awareness and understanding.
However, some might question whether feminists have
exaggerated male power and/or the extent of female
victimisation.
Answers might recognise social changes, for example the
increasing level of violent crime committed by females
against females.
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End of Slide Show
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