Gender and Crime
Official Statistics Patterns ofOffender
Criminal justice system practitioners
Over the last 5 years, there have been increases in female representation
across almost all CJS organisations and in the proportion of senior staff.
The largest increase in female representation was seen in HMPPS staff, from
47% in 2018 to 54% in 2022.
Sociological explanations for why women commit less crime than men
Functionalism: sex role theory. Differential socialisation
Parsons – Children socialised into different sex roles.
Women = expressive role – caring, kind etc = more
likely to conform
Men = instrumental – aggression, competitive, risk
taking
Female crime- e.g shoplifting, prostitution express
socialised role of family caregiver and sexual provider.
Boys spend less time with fathers as they are
performing instrumental role - out at work – they do
not have as much access to their role model.
They show compulsorary masculinity through
aaggression, risk taking, anti-social behaviour
-They know they aren’t supposed to be feminine /have
the expressive role.
They distance themselves from it by beimg tough,
showing aggression and risk-taking
Cohen – The search for a masculine identity can
leeadboysto joining subcultural groupswho act out their
masculininty by breaking the law – vandalism involves
risk takinb
Control theory – patriarchy – differential control (Heidensohn)
Women commit few drimes because of patriarchal control reduces opportunities for offending
Control at home:
- Women’s dual burden = less time to offend
- Grils monitored – more time indoors – bedroom culture = less opportunity to offend
- Dobash and Dobash – argue that if women try to reject this role, they may be controlled violently –
domestic violemce
- But also financially and emotiomally
Control in public ;
- Fear of crime – women avoid going out after dark
- Women conform to avoid being labelled as unfeminine – e.g as sluts
gendermanagement
and crime Offences committed
A greater proportion of female offenders are sentenced TV licence evasion was the offence with the highest
for offences that tend to receive shorter sentences. proportion of female defendants in 2021.
Females were serving shorter custodial sentence lengths. In 2021, 75% of those prosecuted for TV licence
As at 30 June 2022, 17% of females and 7% of males evasion were female. This offence accounted for
were serving sentences of less than 12 months. 18% of all female prosecutions.
In the 2021/22 HM Inspectorate of Prisons survey, Theft from shops was the most common indictable
females reported a high level and breadth of personal offence for female defendants in 2021.
need. Compared to males, a higher proportion of females Theft from shops accounted for 21% of all female
reported: self-declared mental health problems, physical prosecutions for indictable offences, compared to
disability, having drug and alcohol problems, money 8% for males. Of the 19,900 defendants prosecuted
worries and housing worries. A higher proportion of for theft from shops, 5,600 (28%) were female.
female prisoners self-harmed in 2021. In 2021, the
number of individuals who self-harmed per 1,000
prisoners was 350 for females and 135 for males.
Offender characteristics
Ethnic minority groups accounted for a higher proportion of prosecutions against males compared to females.
A higher proportion of female offenders were first time offenders, than males.
15% of females achieved 5 or more GCSEs (or equivalents) graded A* to C, including English and Maths,
compared to 13% of males. This is considerably lower than the all-pupil population (56%).
More than half of young people who had been cautioned or sentenced for an offence were eligible for FS
This was slightly higher for females (57%) than for males (53%). This contrasts with the proportion of pupils in the
all-pupil population where 26% were eligible for FSM.
Control theory – rational choice – class and gender deals (Carlen)
Unstructured interviews ; 39 wc convicted women aged
15-46. They turned to crime when the rewards of crime
removed the controls that prevents them from
offending. They have “nothing to lose and everything to
gain” from offending.
Some women could not find ways of making money
even though they had qualifications and had been on
training courses. They turned to crime = shows a
rejection of the class deal (women conform in return
for decent wage and standard of living
Other women had not had a rewarding family life – e.g
victims of abuse or experience of foster care . They did
nkt get financial or emotional rewards from family life
so had no reason to conform = shows a rejection of the
gender deal – women conform to domestic roles for
material and emotional rewards. Crime is a rational
choice,
Control at work;
Glass ceiling – fewer women in senior positions = less opportunities for white collar crime

Sociological explanations for increase in crime by women

Liberation thesis Feminisation of poverty
Society is becoming less patriarchal. There has been a Some feminists have argued that poverty has become feminised in the last
20 years, as women have become increasingly more likely than men to
genderquake (Wilkinson). Women are more liberated – experience low pay and benefits. Consequently, some types of crime are
free. dominated by women e.g. shoplifting and social security fraud may be a
reaction to poverty.
This is leading to women to commit more crime and the Walklake notes that shoplifting and sex work are often motivated by
same types of crime as men- ie women no longer carrying economic necessity, for example, to provide children with food, toys and
out stereotypical crimes such as prostitution and clothes.
sjoplifting
- Improved career opportunities – more women in
senior positions – more opportunities to commit
crimes such as fraud
- Rise in violent girl gangs, armed robbery etc

Patterns of victimisation
Men as victims of crime Women as victims of crime
Men are at greater risk of being a victim of a violent attack by strangers Women are more likely to be victims of domestic
70% homicide victims are men
violence, sexual violence, stalking and harassment,
people trafficking and in times of armed conflict – mass
rape as a weapon of war.
• Males maintain higher risk of being victim to personal crime than females.
• In 2021/22, 3.3% of males were victim to personal crime, compared to 2.9% of females.
• In 2020/21, 594 homicides were recorded; 70% of victims were male and 30% female.
• In over half (54%) of female homicide victims (where the suspect was known), the suspect was their partner or ex-partner.

Reasons women are treated differently to men by the criminal justice system (CJS)
Chivalry Thesis – Evidence for and against this concept Double Deviance – CJS bias against women

Chivalry suggests that women who commit crime
are awarded more lenient sentences than males
who commit crime. One possible reason for the
lenient sentencing is that women are generally
viewed as the caregiver, or the loving mother –
judges tend to protect women out of
gentlemanliness
Double deviance theory states, "women are
treated more harshly [than men] by the
criminal justice system... because they are guilty
of being doubly deviant. They have deviated from
accepted social norms by breaking the law and
deviated from gender norms which state how
woman should behave."

POLLAK - men feel a protective attitude over woman

because they are socialised into their certain roles and
so they need to be kept on track. Woman are the care
givers and so putting them in prison will take them away
from this duty.

the chivalry thesis also seems outdated.

First, the number of female workers in the
criminal justice system is increasing,
although judges are still overwhelmingly
male. Furthermore, the response to
female deviance is often to see them
as doubly deviant – i.e. deviating against
society's norms and gender norms ‐
rather than to respond in a chivalrous
manner.

Sociological Explanations for crime committed by men.

Hegemonic Masculinity – aggressive masculinity,
accomplishing masculinity (Messerschmidt)
 Connell (1995) argues that hegemonic
masculinity exists in society, meaning that there
is a male gender identity that defines what a real
man is (that females all have an image of the
ideal man.
 Men who don’t want to be regarded as weak
must take risks and become tough and
aggressive.
 Messerschmidt (1993) backed this up by saying
that gender identity is a vital part of the
individuals’ sense of self.
 Some men are unable to accomplish this
hegemonic masculinity through the legitimate
means (such as if they are unable to get a job or
are homosexual), and so they turn to crime as an
illegitimate way of achieving their desired
masculinity.
Post-Modernists explanations of crime – Katz and Lyng
– Edgework
Winlow – Bodily capital and the night-time economy
 Katz, coming from a postmodern view, also
said that much of criminology ignores the role
of pleasure in committing crime. This search for
pleasure and desires must have to be placed in
the context of masculinity (this is influenced by
Matzas concept of delinquency and drift).
 Lyng, also coming from a postmodern view,
argued that men seek pleasure through risk
taking.
 He called this edgework, and said that this
edgework is a thrill gained from acting in ways
that are on the edge between security and
danger to show that they’re masculine