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.
Women have always been thought of as the weaker sex and Sociologists such as Heidensohn argue that men see the need to protect women. Police are more likely to caution a woman for shop lifting than they are a man. Flood-Page et al found that one in eleven female offenders had been cautioned and prosecuted in comparison to one in seven males. Women are also less likely to be prosecuted for an offence and found guilty of offences by juries. This is because women (especially when they have children) are seen first and foremost in the expressive role (mothering and caring).
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.
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
Community standards were upheld by Justice Finnane DCJ. At the time of the sentencing, society was strongly against gang rapes as there was considerably more media coverage of gang rapes than in previous times. The problem that arose after the reduction of the sentence was that it discouraged other victims of sexual assault from reporting incidents as the legal process for the R v Skaf case was lengthy and emotionally traumatic. Therefore by reducing the sentence victims may see it as a waste of time and a blow to their emotions and mental state. In this aspect justice has not been achieved for other victims of sexual assault.
It is a known cultural difference that men usually dominate the world. There are many times when women are abused that they do not file charges against their assailants. Some of the governing assumptions that strengthen the mainstream explanation of the intimate abuse that many women face are as follows: First, men batter women because they are privileged, physically, financially, and socially; it is under the assumption in this belief that we need not understand the violence behind men’s violence beyond that point of the patriarchal explanation. Second, women stay in abusive relationships because of patriarchy. Third, the criminal justice system is sexist.
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
The written law simply does not cover all aspects of behavior that police officers will encounter (Wortley, 2003). Discretionary power by police officers can be abused when their decisions are based and/ or reflected by a sexist or racial bias or stereotype. Women, for example, can not gain fair and equitable treatment if police base their decisions on the stereotype of appropriate female behavior during sexual assault investigations. This leads to police abusing their powers when they
12 2 gender and crime Frances Heidensohn and Marisa Silvestri introduction Men commit crime at higher rates than women, are involved in more serious and violent ofending, and are more prone to recidivism. While this statement has been called ‘one of the few undisputed “facts” of criminology’ (Lauritsen et al. 2009: 362) it was an unconsidered one for much of the subject’s history. hat it is now a central and much debated matter is due largely to the advent of feminist criminology which took this ‘gender gap’ in recorded crime as one of its key themes. Gender is now an established and central topic in criminology and studies of criminal justice (Heidensohn, forthcoming).
Social inequality based on cultural practices is much more prevalent however. Without making a judgment as to which culture is better, because honestly, it is unacceptable to make value judgments about another culture, it is still possible to see that some cultures are more steeped in crime than others. Whether or not some of these cultures, such as gang culture, were led to crime by societal marginalization or were marginalized by the crime they committed is beyond the scope of this essay. However, it is