Essay 21: Why modern criminologists ignore female crime
Modern theories in Criminology almost ignored female crime entirely
Vast majority of theories were developed with male criminality in mind & teste for accuracy on male
samples
If women were mentioned = they ended up as a footnote/ afterthought mostly to explain why theories
could not be used to explain female criminality
Modern theories refer to the sub-cultural, social structure, social control, social process and labelling
perspectives in criminology – examples of each discussed below
SUBCULTURE PERSPECTIVE: Subculture of violence theory (Wolfgang & Ferracuti 1967)
Explains high levels of violence among lower-class poor, urban males = quick resort to physical
aggression is socially approved and expected accompanying certain stimuli
SOCIAL STRUCTURE PERSPECTIVE: Opportunity theory (Cloward & Ohlin 1961)
Model explaining gang delinquency = role of illegitimate opportunity structures in development of
deviant adaptations to anomic conditions; if you have illegitimate opportunity structures available,
person is likely to use as adaptation to anomic conditions
SOCIAL CONTROL PERSPECTIVE: Delinquency & Drift theory (Matza & Sykes 1957)
Examines process by which legal norms are neutralised by juveniles (juveniles exercise of choices &
their sense of injustice they received)
SOCIAL PROCESS PERSPECTIVE: Differential Reinforcement theory (Burgess & Akers 1966)
They re-evaluated Sutherland's theory about DA using behaviourism and incorporated psychological
principles of operant conditioning maintaining that even non-social effects can reinforce criminal
behaviour
LABELLING PERSPECTIVE: Dramatisation of evil (Tannenbaum 1938)
Process of defining deviant behaviour as different among juvenile delinquents & conventional society,
causing a "tagging" of juveniles as delinquent by mainstream society. Stigma accompanying deviant
"tag" causes a person fall into deeper nonconformity
Explanations for remarkable lack of interest are limited & mostly focused on following reasons:
As result of the fact that official female crime rate is so low, female crime is considered non-
problematic
Feminists argue it is another example of invisibility of women in society
Women have significantly lower violent crime rate than men = low robbery, burglary, theft and
organised crime rate (usually steal smaller items/ less value items); when involved in
embezzlement & fraud they yield less financial gain than men; most do not have previous criminal
records – reasons why it is seen as unimportant
Also stated that chivalry hypothesis exists = less offenders that are prosecuted so statistics are
lower/ less
In SA females make up 3% of prison population, in England 11% of convictions
Because traditional criminologists didn’t regard female criminality as important research focus area &
thus unworthy of theoretical development, modern criminologists had nothing to build & elaborate on
Should be kept in mind that Lombroso and Ferrero, W.I. Thomas and Otto Pollak were exceptions to
the rule in the bigger field of what’s considered as traditional Criminology
However all these theorists explained female criminality from a man’s perspective or using male
examples to derive reasons for female criminality
Lombroso & Ferrero (La Donna Delinquente) with offensive, sexist and misogynistic insights of
female offenders – females were subordinate to males in that time
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