Transcript Gender and Crime

Gender and Crime
Lesson Plan
Introduction into Gender and Crime:
Power point Presentation – Read and make notes.
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Introduction – Internet task. 15 mins
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The causes of female crime and deviance.
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Female crime and women’s liberation (mini
group presentations)
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10 Minute Break
Lesson Plan
20 minute internet investigation. Find
recent government statistics and
newspaper articles on female crime and
deviance.
Save any information or recent statistics that
may be of use to you for exams.
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Introduction
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Carol Smart put forward a number of
reasons why research on women and
crime has been limited.
Women tend to commit fewer crimes than
men, so female offenders are seen as
less of a problem for society.
Most crimes committed by women seem
to be of a comparatively trivial nature
Introduction
And may therefore be considered unworthy
of research.
 Sociology and criminology have both
tended to be dominated by males. In the
main they have been studied by men and
the studies have been about men.
 Traditional criminology is motivated by a
desire to control behaviour that is
Introduction
Regarded as problematic. Since women’s
criminality has been seen as much less
problematic than men’s, it has received
correspondingly less attention.
Task
Go onto government websites and look at
statistics for both males and females
cut and paste any findings!
The causes of female crime and
deviance:
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1.
2.
3.
There are three major approaches to
explaining the relationship between
women and offending:
Biological & Physiological explanations
Sex-role theory
Transgression
Biological explanations
This approach has been used by different
writers to explain why the overwhelming
bulk of women do not offend and conversly
why a small minority do. It starts from the
belief that women are innately different
from men, with a natural desire to be caring
and nurturing – both of which tend not to be
values that support crime. ‘Normal’ women
are therefore less likely to commit crime.
Biological explanations
On the other hand, some women writers such
as Dalton (1964) have claimed that
hormonal or menstrual factors can
influence this minority of women to commit
crime in certain circumstances.
Physiological: Lombroso was primarily
concerned with comparing anatomical
features of female criminals and noncriminals.
Biological explanations
For example he reported data comparing
brains and skulls, the width of cheekbones,
size of jaws and even the size of the thighs
of prostitutes and ‘normal women’.
His overall argument was that rather than
being the cause of female criminality,
biology tends to prevent women from
becoming criminal.
Biological explanations
When writing about male crime, Lombroso
had suggested that criminals could be
identified through the presence of ‘stigmata’
or physical abnormalities, such as having
an extra nipple or toe. Lombroso and
Ferrero (1895 found few examples of such
abnormalities amongst female criminals. To
them this meant that most female offenders
were not true, biological, criminals.
Sex-role theory
Sex-role theory argues that women are less
likely to commit crime than men because
there are core elements of the female role
that limit their ability and opportunity to do
so. There are a number of different
versions, all of which can fit quite
comfortably together.
 Socialisation: according to this approach,
girls are socialised differently to boys.
Sex-role theory
The values that girls are brought up to hold
are those that simply do not lead to crime.
Parsons (1937) argues for instance, that
the most child rearing is carried out by
mothers, girls have a clear role-model to
follow that emphasises caring support.
 Social Control: Females are less likely to
commit crime because of the closer levels
of supervision that they are subjected to at
Sex-role theory
At home in childhood. This control carries on
throughout life, with the role of women being more
constrained than that of males.
Lack of opportunities: in order to commit crime, a
person needs to have the opportunity to do so.
The narrow range of roles that women are
allowed have consequently limits their
opportunities to commit crime, as they are more
confined by their socialisation and social control
than men. The result of these
Sex-role theory
three influences on the lives of females, is to
deflect them away from offending and
towards conformity.
Transgression
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This theory stems from the fact that
feminist sociologists as they felt that they
were not really adequate explanations for
the differences between male and female
causes for offending.
Carol Smart (1990) introduced the idea of
transgressive criminology. By this, Smart
was suggesting that criminology itself as a
discipline was tied to male questions and
Transgression
Concerns and that it could never offer
answers to feminist questions.
Transgression in the feminist sense of the
word is used to describe going beyond the
boundaries of criminology.
Transgression is a good example of
postmodern influence in sociology.
Female crime and women’s liberation
Mini Investigation
In groups of 3 investigate the work of the following;
1. Freda Adler
2. Carol Smart
3. Steven Box and Chris Hale
Create a word document with main points and
analysis.
Present your finding to the rest of the group (no
more than 5minutes)!
Answer Questions