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Gender and Crime

Introduction

◼ Carol Smart put forward a number of reasons why research on women and crime has been limited.

◼ Women tend to commit fewer crimes than men, so female offenders are seen as less of a problem for society.

◼ Most crimes committed by women seem to be of a comparatively trivial nature

Introduction

And may therefore be considered unworthy of research.

◼ Sociology and criminology have both tended to be dominated by males. In the main they have been studied by men and the studies have been about men.

◼ Traditional criminology is motivated by a desire to control behaviour that is

Introduction

Regarded as problematic. Since women’s criminality has been seen as much less problematic than men’s, it has received correspondingly less attention.

The causes of female crime and deviance:

◼ There are three major approaches to

explaining the relationship between

women and offending:

1. Biological & Physiological explanations

2. Sex-role theory

3. Transgression

Biological explanations

This approach has been used by different writers to explain why the overwhelming bulk of women do not offend and conversly why a small minority do. It starts from the belief that women are innately different from men, with a natural desire to be caring and nurturing – both of which tend not to be values that support crime. ‘Normal’ women are therefore less likely to commit crime.

Biological explanations

On the other hand, some women writers such as Dalton (1964) have claimed that hormonal or menstrual factors can influence this minority of women to commit crime in certain circumstances.

Physiological: Lombroso was primarily concerned with comparing anatomical features of female criminals and non- criminals.

Biological explanations

For example he reported data comparing

brains and skulls, the width of cheekbones,

size of jaws and even the size of the thighs

of prostitutes and ‘normal women’.

His overall argument was that rather than

being the cause of female criminality,

biology tends to prevent women from

becoming criminal.

Biological explanations

When writing about male crime, Lombroso had suggested that criminals could be identified through the presence of ‘stigmata’ or physical abnormalities, such as having an extra nipple or toe. Lombroso and Ferrero (1895 found few examples of such abnormalities amongst female criminals. To them this meant that most female offenders were not true, biological, criminals.

Sex-role theory

Sex-role theory argues that women are less likely to commit crime than men because there are core elements of the female role that limit their ability and opportunity to do so. There are a number of different versions, all of which can fit quite comfortably together.

◼ Socialization: according to this approach, girls are socialised differently to boys.

Sex-role theory

The values that girls are brought up to hold are those that simply do not lead to crime. Parsons (1937) argues for instance, that the most child rearing is carried out by mothers, girls have a clear role-model to follow that emphasises caring support.

◼ Social Control: Females are less likely to commit crime because of the closer levels of supervision that they are subjected to at

Sex-role theory

At home in childhood. This control carries on throughout life, with the role of women being more constrained than that of males.

Lack of opportunities: in order to commit crime, a person needs to have the opportunity to do so. The narrow range of roles that women are allowed have consequently limits their opportunities to commit crime, as they are more confined by their socialisation and social control than men. The result of these

Sex-role theory

three influences on the lives of females, is to

deflect them away from offending and

towards conformity.

Transgression

◼ This theory stems from the fact that feminist sociologists as they felt that they were not really adequate explanations for the differences between male and female causes for offending.

◼ Carol Smart (1990) introduced the idea of transgressive criminology. By this, Smart was suggesting that criminology itself as a discipline was tied to male questions and

Transgression

Concerns and that it could never offer

answers to feminist questions.

Transgression in the feminist sense of the

word is used to describe going beyond the

boundaries of criminology.

Transgression is a good example of

postmodern influence in sociology.