Some questions
Has women’s participation in crime increased
in the past 30 years?
Does the liberation thesis explain increases in women’s prison populations?
How do [any] increases compare to that of men?
Are women behaving more like men?
How do we know what we know?
Trends
Increases seem to be apparent for women
in DUI, larceny, minor thefts and fraud
Limitations in data preclude many comparisons
Serious crime still largely male territory
Arrests for crime that females typically commit has increased overall
FP/A has increased in some areas, decreased in others
Similar social and legal forces underlie the arrest rates for both sexes, independent of any condition unique to women or so-called “women’s crimes.”
The “widening of the net” accounts for most
over-time increases
Women’s involvement
Drug offenses
Homicide
Robberies, assaults
All violent offenses
Weapons violations
Minor offenses
Prison populations
Interpret this statistic:
According to UCR statistics, the female
share of arrests has increased for several violent offenses, most notably
for misdemeanor assault but also for felony assault.
Explaining women’s crime
Early explanations of crime
The tired “nature v. nurture” dichotomy
Biological
Lombroso and “masculinized” women
Psychological
Freud and penis envy
Sociological theories
Social disorganization
Strain
Differential association
Male based and biased
Hybrid: Pollak
Women are inherently deceitful
Contemporary explanations
Law and the organizational management of
crime
Net widening and changes in law
Gender equality and emancipation
Increased economic marginalization
Increased inner-city disorganization
Expanded opportunities for female-type crime
Changes in the underworld
Trends in drug dependency
Crime prevention programs targeting male
offenders
Interactive systems…
Opportunity can amplify motivation
Being able tends to make one more willing,
and vice versa
So… what do we know? Gender makes different criminals
Blurred boundaries between victims and offenders happen more for women
Women are generally excluded from most lucrative criminal opportunities
Women can exploit sex as both an end and a strategy
Women are constrained by motherhood and child care
Women are more concerned with relations
Women are (perceived to be) more in need of protection
Gendered model of female offending and
gender differences in crime
Key elements
Organization of gender
Norms, identities, arrangements, institutions,
relations
Gendered contexts
Meanings, interpretations, “gestalt”
Gendered pathways
Routes to crime different