There are a lot of gender differences in patterns of crime, from which gender commit more crime to which crimes each gender commits more of. In this essay I will be giving explanations on why this different patterns in crime for gender happen. Men have a higher crime rate than women but the gap in this crime rate is slowly closing in recent years. Some Sociobiologists have the explanation that it is biological for the reason women are less likely to commit crimes than men. They argue that women have a more natural desire to be caring and this does not correspond to the values of crime, so they are less likely to offend due to them not having the nature to commit the crime.
Using material from Item A and elsewhere, assess the value of the ‘chivalry thesis’ in understanding gender differences in crime. When looking at official statistics it is clear to see that there is a difference in the amount and type of crime that is committed by the two sexes. The chivalry thesis is the idea that the cause for this difference is the experience of women within the criminal justice system (CJS). The thesis argues that women are treated more leniently by criminal justice agents such as the police , magistrates and judges because men are socialised to behave in a ‘chivalrous’ way towards women. There are several differences in the amount of crime that men and women do.
The main idea of the chivalry thesis is this prospect that men are socialised to act in a way more chivalrous – or gentlemanly – toward women so they end up convicting men more than women. Otto Pollak (1950) argued that women’s crimes are less likely to end up in official statistics due to the fact that “men don’t like to accuse or punish women” so the criminal justice system is more lenient toward them. The chivalry thesis can be supported by the work of Graham and Bowling who used self-report studies and found that men still commit more crimes than women although the gap is now smaller. They also found that women are more likely to be cautioned whereas men are more likely to be arrested. Nevertheless, the chivalry thesis also has many criticisms including results from a study carried out in a
Since we live in a patriarchal society, and have since the beginning of time, women are more known for supporting the male in whatever his role is, and staying behind the scene. Women in the drug game were almost nonexistent as men felt that women were not strong or wise enough to handle such dangerous and demanding situations. This however, is not the case in either Dorm Room Dealers or Cocaine Kids. While there weren’t many women in the forefront selling drugs, Kitty, Cecelia, and Stopper certainly defied the norm as female drug dealers. Kitty, however, fit more so in the background as her role was not as instrumental in the actual scheme of selling drugs.
While some of the laws of the code of Hammurabi were fair, others were harsh and unjust. If the list of laws was split, about one-half would be decent and the rest would be unfair. Most of the laws would work well, but the punishment is too cruel. The laws in the code seem to be sexist against women and unfair towards lower class citizens as well. Although, some laws are brutal, they are necessary to keep order in the community and crime at a low.
Delinquency Deterrence Response The threat of punishment does deter juvenile delinquency by general deterrence which means that crime control policies that depend on the fear of criminal penalties, such as long prison sentences for violent crimes. The aim is to convince law violators that the consequence outweighs the benefits of the crime or criminal activity (Wadsworth, 2005) If more severe, certain, and swift the punishment is the guiding principle of deterrence theory then the effects of the deterrence is greater. Since the increase in teenage violence, gang activity, and drug abuse was a result of not punishing adolescents severely as adults were so that juvenile justice authorities would not interfere with the parens patriae philosophy, which means A doctrine that grants the inherent power and authority of the state to protect persons who are legally unable to act on their own behalf (West,2005), prompted a reevaluation of deterrence strategies in the 1990’s shifting an emphasis on treatment to an emphasis on public safety in some juvenile courts (Wadsworth, 2005). This would allow officers to enter schools undercover to identify and arrest juvenile drug dealers and to allow judges to be more open with charging juveniles as adults leading to doubling the total of juveniles under the age of eighteen from thirty-four hundred in 1985 to seventy-four hundred in 1997. This and the legislators passing more restrictive juvenile codes seems to have an overall beneficial effect on the delinquency rate and that is that it has declined.
In this essay I will explore the fundamental reasons why there is a significant difference between crime rates concerning men and women and I will also give reasons why men seem to commit more crimes on the surface and why women seem to commit less crime. I will base my Sociological concepts on Heidensohn but I will also use ideas from Pollack, Adler, Smart etc. The official crime statistics show how recorded crime tends to be a predominantly ‘masculine activity’. One explanation as to why there was a significant difference in patterns of crime concerning gender could be because Sociologists tended to focus on male criminality. Heidensohn (1985) said that female crime was either overlooked or ignored by sociologists or sociologists would merely assume stereotypical ideas on females regarding their criminal activity, for example, they would be too busy cooking and cleaning to have time to take part in crime, whereas men are stereotypically the bread-winners which means they are out in public more and so would have more opportunity to commit crime than women.
Using material from Item A and elsewhere, assess sociological explanations for differences in the patterns of offending between males and females. As Item A states, men commit a considerable amount of crime as opposed to women according to official statistics. Moreover men tend to commit different types of crime than women offenders eg It is more common for men to be convicted of violent and sexual crimes than women, who tend to commit crimes such as shoplifting and prostitution. In addition to there have been many sociological explanations put forward when looking at the differences in patterns of offending between males and females. Women are often seen as the victims of crimes rather than the perpetrator, official crime statistics
The First Bloke shows us a lot about sexism aimed at women. Dr Paul Williams the guest being interviewed mentions that when it comes to media he thinks women get judged more, “Men generally get off a little more lightly than women.” When saying this statement Dr Williams use of tone was quite relaxed as it showed he didn’t exactly care that men get off more lightly, which is wrong as he should be going against this statement. In fact this statement shows us very effectively that sexism is involved as it teaches us that the media of the world is more judgemental towards women and that just because they are a different gender they get judged more often on their clothes, hair, personality, etc. Women should not be treated with different respect to men unless it’s appropriate, so in order to overcome sexism you have to understand why is it that one gender is being more judged than the other? Another statement which Dr Williams made was, “6-7 Years ago some people would’ve thought we’d never see an Australian woman prime minister.” This quote definitely shows us that a few years ago woman were definitely looked at as a lower status compared to men and that it was hard to believe they were capable of the same jobs a men.
Official statistics have resulted in far less crime than reported in the BCS, and can be seen as unreliable evidence for patterns and trends, due to; not all incidents being reported, police being reluctant to record instances that are, due to e regular lack of evidence and trivial approach, and agencies and authorities trying to stay out of private affairs, adopting the opinion that families are positive things, and the victims can always leave is necessary. The BCS due to its anonymity has resulted in far higher crime rate, which leads sociologists to question the validity of their statistics and patterns. The most commonly found pattern is that women are almost always the victims of domestic violence, and men are predominantly the abusers. One reason to explain the gender related patterns found by sociologists is the idea that abuse such as this is due to the patriarchy of society, and is merely a way of maintaining male dominance and power. This reason is primarily adopted by feminists, who believe that marriage is a trap for women, making them