Gender

• Gender patterns in crime

  • Most crime is committed by males, 4/5 offenders are male
  • Higher proportion of females are convicted of property crime
  • Males are convicted of more serious crimes, violence and sa
• Official stats underestimate the amount of female crime:

  1. Female crime = less likely to be reported (e.g. shoplifting is less likely to be reported than violent crime by men)
  2. Even when women crimes are reported they’re less likely to be prosecuted
• Chivalry thesis - trad. theory where marriage rates where high and divorce rates were low


  Idea that women are less likely to be prosecuted for their offences

  • Pollack = men are protective to women, unwilling to arrest charge, prosecute or convict them
  • Their crimes are less likely to end up in official stats > invalid > underrepresents women’s crime
• Evidence for Chivalry thesis

  • Hood = studied over 3,000 defendants, found women were 1/3 less likely to be jailed in similar cases
  • Official stats = women more likely to receive a fine than go to prison
  • Self report studies = female offenders are treated more leniently
• Evidence against Chivalry thesis

  • Farrington and Morris = found women were not sentenced more leniently for comparable offences
  • Some male crimes don’t get reported, e.g. crimes of the powerful and corporate crime
  • Self report studies = males commit more offences, more serious the offence the greater the gender gap
• Bias against women

  Feminists = CJS is on favour against them especially when they go against gender norms

  • Heidelson = double standards of courts punishing girls but not boys for promiscuous sexual activity
  • Walklate = rape cases, its the victim who is on trial > trying to prove her respectability
  • Carlen = found Scottish courts were more likely to jail women whose children were in care then women who they saw as good mothers