Feminist Theories of Crime

Feminist Theories of Crime Girls, Women, and Crime

Residential Mobility Poverty Racial Heterogeneity Disorganization Crime Shaw and McKay's Model

Sampson and Grove (1989) Residential Mobility Low Economic Status Racial Heterogeneity Family Disruption Population Density/Urbanization Unsupervised teen-age peer groups Low organizational participation Spare local friendship networks Crime

Violent crimes included are homicide, rape, robbery, and both simple and aggravated assault.

Males were almost 10 times more likely than females to commit murder in 2005.The offending rates for females declined since the early 1980's but stabilized after 1999.

Dominant theories of crime • Rational Choice theory • Deterrence theory • Social Learning Theory • Social Bond Theory • Self-Control Theory • Labeling Theory • Social Disorganization • Merton’s Theory

Feminist Theories • Criminology has been dominated by males (field is flawed by the “masculine” perspective) • Two main issues for Feminist theories of crime are : “Do the theories of men’s crime apply to women?” and “Can the theory explain the well known gender difference in crime?”

Women and crime • Women’s crime was virtually overlooked • Female victimization was ignored or minimized • Feminist criminology demonstrates how gender matters not only in terms of one’s trajectory into crime but also in terms of how the criminal justice system responds to the women-offenders

Background Information is important • A few facts about the lives of adult women in U.S. prisons • 60% of women under correctional authority reported that they have been sexually and physically assaulted at some time in their lives • 69% of these women reported the assault happened before they were 18 years old

National Study • In 1990, the American Correctional Association published the results from a survey it conducted on female offenders Based on the responses of female offenders in 400 state and local correctional facilities, a very detailed profile of the female offender was produced

Profile • Most are young (25-29) • The majority are economically disadvantage minorities with children • About half ran away from home as youths • About a quarter had attempted suicide • A sizable number had serious drug problems • More than half were victims of physical abuse/sexual abuse • About a third had never completed high school • Over a quarter had been unemployed in the three years before going to prison • Most of the women were first imprisoned for larceny, theft, or drug offenses, and, at the time of the survey, they were serving time for drug offenses, murder, larceny, theft, or robbery • Many of the women convicted of manslaughter or murder had killed a boyfriend or husband who abused them

Homicides committed by women • Female-perpetrated homicides account for 10-12% of the overall homicides • Who do women kill? • The answer is those closest to them, with whom they live (intimate partners, or ex-partners and family members) • Over the period 1995-2001, intimate partners accounted for 32% of female-perpetrated homicides

Method of killing • Women usually kill their partner with a knife or sharp instrument (78%) • Poisoning (6.2%) • Blunt instrument (2.6%) • Arson (2.2%) • Shooting (2.0%)

Weapon use in Murder • A firearm (handgun) is used in about two-thirds of all homicides (predominantly males) • Knives or other cutting instruments (predominantly females) • Personal weapons (hands, fists, and feet) • Blunt objects • Strangulation

Offender characteristics • Typical intimate partner killer is one aged b/w 25 and 40, with below-average level of educational attainment, who is likely to unemployed and from lower-class background (Mann, 1996, Goetting, 1987)

Explanations of Intimate Partner Homicide • “Battered Woman Syndrome” (Walker, 1989) (women who have been physically, psychologically, or sexually abused over an extended period of time) • Financial gain (financial benefit from the death of partner) • Sexual Motivation (establish legal relationship with another party)

Invisible women • Every year, girls account for over a quarter of all arrests of young people in America (FBI, 2002, p.239) • Despite this, the young women who find themselves in the juvenile justice system either by formal arrest or referral are almost completely invisible • Explanations for their delinquency explicitly or implicitly avoid addressing girls

Liberal feminism • “Liberation perspective” • Greater equality in education, politics, economy, and military • An unintended consequence of this availability to women of a wider range of social roles is their greater involvement in crime (arena dominated by men)

Power-Control Theory of Gender and Delinquency • John Hagan, 1987 • The theory explains the difference between male and female rates of delinquency • Two types of family structures (“Patriarchal” families vs “egalitarian” families)

Patriarchalfamily • Fathers occupy the traditional role of sole breadwinner and mothers have only menial jobs or remain at home to handle domestic affairs • Father’s focus is directed outward towards his instrumental responsibilities, while the mother is left in charge of the children, especially their daughters • Sons are granted greater freedom as they are prepared for the traditional male role symbolized by their fathers • Daughters are socialized into the cult of domesticity under the close supervision of their mothers, preparing them for lives oriented towards domestic labor and consumption

Patriarchalfamily • Sons are encouraged and allowed to "experiment" and take risks • Daughters in this scenario are closely monitored so that participation in deviant or delinquent activity is unlikely.

Egalitarian family • Is characterized by little difference between the mother's and father's work roles, so that responsibility for child rearing is shared • Neither child receives the close supervision present over females in the paternalistic family • Middle class aspirations and values dominate: mobility, success, autonomy, and risk taking • Daughter's deviance now mirrors their brother's

Middle-class girls • ...middle-class girls are the most likely to violate the law because they are less closely controlled than their lower-class counterparts • And in homes where both parents hold positions of power, girls are more likely to have the same expectations of career success as their brothers • Power-control theory, then, implies that middle-class youth of both sexes will have higher crime rates than their lower-class peers

Assessing power-control theory • Hagan's theory has been criticized as being basically a fairly straightforward adaptation of the "liberation hypothesis," as females experience upward mobility and status change, their access to deviant and illicit behaviors expand

Assessing power-control theory • Female deviance becomes a product of the "sexual scripts" within patriarchal families that make it more likely for them to become the victims of both sexual and physical abuse • If they run away, the juvenile court supports parental rights and returns them to the home, persistent violations lead to incarceration and future trouble as official delinquents/deviants or life on the street where survival depends on involvement in crime

Feminist Theories of Crime