The social distribution of crime: GenderThe general trend is that women commit and are convicted of fewer crimes than men

There are 5 main explanations that explain these trends in female criminality:

Feminism the chivalry thesis sex role theory social control theory liberation thesis.

Heidensohn is slightly different , he doesn’t attempt to explain the trend, he says that the evidence we have isn’t accurate. He focusses– Male stream sociology and the invisibility of women

There are two main explanations of male crime: Late modern explanations, explanations that focus on masculinity.

Patterns and trends

Identify the three most surprising figures and explain why you find these surprising

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Patterns in types of crime

Females are more likely to be convicted of property offences than males (exc ept burglary). Males are more likely to be convicted of sexual and violent offences.

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

Early explanations of gender and crime

Early explanations of female crime tended to focus on biological factors e.g. Lombroso and Ferrero argued that criminality is innate, but that there are very few ‘born female criminals’. Women have a natural desire to be nurturing and caring. However, Dalton (64) argued that when women do commit crime it is more likely to occur during menstruation.

Task –

Research Lombroso and Ferrero, what physical characteristics are typical in male offenders?

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Explanation of gender and crime: Functionalist Sex Role Theory

This theory looks at the gender socialisation and the different roles each gender has. Female roles include caring for partners, children, and dependent elderly parents. There is also household duties they are expected to perform. Gender socialisation wants women to adopt these roles, by adopting them they become more emotional and less aggressive making them more afraid of committing crime because they do not have the characteristics of a criminal. Men are encouraged to be tough and aggressive, therefore disposed to commit acts of violence. Parsons (1955) traces this back to differences in gender roles in nuclear family. Men take on the breadwinner role, whilst women take on the nurturing, caring role meaning they bring up children. Girls therefore have access to adult role model, but boys seek to distance themselves of feminine models of behaviour engaging in compulsory masculinity According to A. K Cohen (1955) the absence of the male role model leads boys to turn to all male street gangs as a source of masculine identity, here they earn status through delinquency (Think the other Cohen’s subcultural theory).

Evaluation of sex role theory:

Walklate (see feminism below) criticises Parsons for assuming that because of a woman biological ability to bear children that they are the best to the expressive role. So although Parsons tries to explain this socially he is actually doing so biologically about sex differences.

Task- identify at least two additional criticisms of Functionalist Sex Role Theory

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Explanations of gender and crime: The Chivalry thesis

Task –

What evidence is there of the chivalry thesis in other areas of social life?

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Explanations of gender and crime: Feminism

Using the QR code above, summarise the key points about this 2017 rape case and how it helps to support the ideas put forward by Walklate.

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Going further – How can the evidence contained in the QR code below be used to argue against the feminist standpoint of Walklate?

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Arguments for the chivalry thesis

Arguments against the chivalry thesis

Sociologists have found differences between official statistics e.g. police reported stats and self –report studies

Box (1981) found that when women were treated more leniently, it was because their sentences were less serious. Also women were more likely to show remorse = lower prison tariff.

A study by Flood-Page et al found that women who had admitted to committing crimes were less likely to be charged compared to men

In a study of shop lifting sociologists witnessed twice as many males shoplifting, despite the fact that official statistics show an equal gender split for this crime. This suggests women shop lifters are more likely to be prosecuted/caught than males.

A study of 3,000 defendants found that women were about 1/3 less likely to be sent to prison in similar cases to men.

Explanation of gender and crime: Patriachal control theory

This theory is associated with the work of two sociologists; Hirschi and Heidensohn

It can be argued that this theory also links with victimisation as a form of controlling behaviour is now regarded as a formal of domestic abuse.

Task – research ‘coercive control’ in the UK and how it can be used to demonstrate women’s risk of victimisation through control.

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Stretch and challenge – in what ways can it be argues that Carlen’s study is more an explanation of the impact of poverty than control theory?

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Explanation of gender and crime: Liberation thesis

Task – identify arguments that liberation could have helped to reduce rates of female offending.

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Rank order the following explanations of the relationship between gender and crime in terms of usefulness and explain your top and bottom choices.

Feminism, the chivalry thesis, Functionalist sex role theory, social control theory and the liberation thesis.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

The most useful explanation is ….. ……………………………….because…..

The least useful explanation is ………………………………….. because………………

Heidensohn helps to explain how the position of women in criminology is an important factor to understand in the gender and criminality debate .

Evidence to support the invisibility of women in criminology:

• Studies of working class crime pay little attention to the fact that working class women in the same social class position as men commit far less crime.

• Female victimization particularly by men has largely been ignored until recently e.g. domestic / sexual violence

Why are women invisible?

Heidensohn suggests the following reasons:

• Most academics are male

• ‘malestream’ research is seen as edgy/thrilling to male middle-class academics- they over-romanticise working class male crime.

• There is less to study due to the relatively low level of female crime + much female crime is invisible – less likely to commit detectable offences e.g. prostitution and shop lifting.

• Her work focusses a lot on control (she states that control methods are successful and extensive), and moving forwards she suggests that criminology should focus on women’s conformity as much as their deviance.

Task –

Do a research trawl – how many studies can you find that explain male criminality compared to female criminality? Are there differences in the themes that the research tends to focus on?

However, there is evidence of a growth in feminist criminology.

This growth has tended to focus on the following areas-

• Women’s treatment in the CJS

• Female offending

• Female victimization

• The gender gap in offending

• Criticism of existing mainstream theories

They bring the following concepts into the criminology arena-

• Gender identity

• E.g. Smart pointed out that women are often seen as double deviants(breaking the law and traditional gender roles, offences are therefore more highly stigmatised)

• Explore the concept of femininity and how this may account for the reduced levels of crime among females and masculinity and increased levels of crime – see messerschmidt

Explaining male crime: the issue is masculinity

What is masculinity?

How has it changed over the last 30 years?

What factors have helped to bring about these changes?

Messerschmidt: men can achieve masculinity in different ways – some use C+D

C+D are resources that different men may use for accomplishing masculinity. Many ways of achieving their normative masculinity depending on their access to power and resources. Class and ethnic differences lead to different forms of rule breaking:

• Businessmen

What types of crime are associated with them?

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• White working-class youths

What types of crime are associated with them?

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• Black lower working-class youths

What types of crime are associated with them?

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Therefore, it is achieving masculinity that leads some men to commit crime.

Criticisms of Messerschmidt-

• Masculinity = description / explanation of crime?

• Why don’t all men commit crimes if they all aspire to the same masculinity?

• Concept over-worked… can it explain anything?

Identify at least one other criticism of Messerschmidt’s ideas.

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Explaining male crime: A late modern explanation of male crime

Task –

What other topics have the above sociologists work been covered in?

Identify links between these topics and the concepts of masculinity and gender.

Case study: Simon Winlow

Bad Fellas

Violent Night

Read one or both of the above and summarise the findings and key concepts that they demonstrate below