Official Crime Statistics (OCR) revealed how recorded crime appears to be a masculine activity (87% of all recorded crime)

1
Introduction
Official Crime Statistics (OCR) revealed how
recorded crime appears to be a masculine activity
(87 of all recorded crime)
Victorians explained womens conformity with
biological theory, sociologists favour
socialisation, social control and postmodern
concept of transgression.
Crime, delinquency and deviance viewed as a
(working-class) male thing, that usually ends
as they settled down.
However, the growth of laddette behaviour is
challenging the implied links between deviance
and masculinity.
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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?
Are there differences in the kinds of crime
committed by men and women?
Is there any evidence that womens crime has
changed in either amount or kind ?
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vgGGXUkOQIngfeature
fvsr http//www.youtube.com/watch?vUvHE86XsC0M
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Female Crime Statistics
Whilst they commit less than men, women commit
all types of offences.
Womens property crime is motivated by economic
factors (just like men).
Women fear and feel the impact of the stigma of
the criminal label.
Women offenders are seen as 'doubly deviant' -
for breaking social rules, and being viewed as
unfeminine.
Quantitative and qualitative evidence suggests
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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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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
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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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 law-breakers.
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Sex-role Theory (Socialization)
From infancy, children are socialized that the
two sexes are different.
Female rôles contain such elements as caring,
passivity, and domesticity.
Male rôles, 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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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 self-imposed
curfews treatment of women as victims domestic
violence, abuse and rape.
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Patterns and Trends in Crime according to Gender

• Suggest patterns in relation to-
• Male vs female offenders in OCR statistics
• Types of crimes committed by males/females
• Reasons for committing crime
• Male vs female victims

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These are the recent patterns

• According to OCR 2006 87 of offenders are male
  although this may have changed
• Women rarely commit violent crime most are
  convicted of theft type crimes.
• Pat Carlens Sex-role theory suggests women
  commit crimes for different reasons, usually to
  provide for their families.
• Statistically males are more likely to be
  victims, however Feminists argue crimes against
  women are under represented in the statistics.

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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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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 masculinitys 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. Millers focal concern
of excitement.
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Summary Questions

• Explain how these terms are used to explain male
  crime.
• Normative masculinity
• Emasculation
• Accommodating / oppositional masculinity
• Crime as seductive/for excitement

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Will Womens Crime Rise?
Freda Adler (1975) believes that womens
liberation will increase womens participation in
criminal activity. Evidence of recent rises in
youth offending of girls. Youth Justice Board
found 25 increase from 2003 to 2006.
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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Rise in Womens Crime
Stephen Box feels that any increase in womens
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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Independent research.

• Recent stories about female crime or specific
  crimes involving female offenders
• Use the link below to look at a podology article.
• http//www.podology.org.uk//increasing-female-cri
  me/4541864496

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Answer the following

• Idenitify at least three reasons why female crime
  might be increasing
• Identify the types of crimes that are
  increasingly being committed by females
• Identify research studies or statistical evidence
  which supports these claims

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Presentation task

• Create a ppt presentation which covers the main
  issues related to gender and crime.
• 1. Patterns and Trends
• 2. Feminist views
• 3. Masculinity and crime
• 4. Rise in female crime
• You should include research evidence and
  statistics and examples of news stories.
• Upload your presentation to the blog by Thursday
  end of school.