The female criminality

The fe manly wrongINTRODUCTIONWo custody, undeniably, defy been all entirely invisible for much of criminologys history.1Wo men check never been as prominent as their male counter part in criminology, so much so, they can be tell to film been unattended for m all centuries and it was non until the turn of the twentieth century that women who root forted crimes were actually included in criminological discourse. The advent of the feminist movements throughout this sequence beginning with the suffragettes to the current Fawcett commission established in 2003, has seen the realisation of womens rights and the struggle for equation supposedly at an end. merely as we will see, non-feminist explanations for female criminality still leave much to be desired of as most parts of criminology along with company appears to be wedded to the conventional and unimaginative moots of women, with the feminist explanations casting a new view on how women ought to be canvass at heart the field of criminology.This paper aims to discuss and evaluate the unhomogeneous criminological explanations of womens involvement in crime, and suggest possibilities that obviate the traditional savvying which passes female criminality finish as purely biological. The discussion of the criminological explanations will take on two focal th trains why some women redact crime and why the majority do non. Using government statistics from England and Wales, specifically those after the second wave of the feminist movement in the 1960s and the present day, incidence, types and trends of female criminality will be explored. After the issues and enigmas within the statistics have been identified, I will then discuss whether criminologists can explain conclusively the reason for these findings.Do we ask to study female criminality?Criminology is the study of crime which endeavours to explain and find solutions for deviant demeanour, to date at that place overly postulates to b e a reason why this certain behavior requires explanation.The possibility welcomed by the government is that crime is conduct which has been agreed as contrary to the norms of society. Deviant behaviour is a problem which needs to be resolved, and once the problems have been acknowledged, policy makers can then make decisions and laws based on finding solutions to these problems.Smart nones that scarcely those topics officially designated as amicable problems be studied, which she articulates is responsible for the sorry state of current knowledge and realise on female criminality2 women be not seen as a problem, yet they live in the homogeneous world as men just commit less(prenominal) crime. This creates a great opportunity for society finding cardinal reasons why women do not commit as much crime as men could possibly be replicated to reduce the deem of men committing crimes, or at least aid in the general control of crime. However, according to the Youth Justice Board in 2009, the relatively lower number of puppylike women engaged in offending has meant, however, that most research and expertise has been developed in response to male offending3.Gender is one of the most certain predictors of offending4, and women have never been seen as a social problem because their deviant acts in relation to men atomic number 18 actually low. But as is some cartridge clips suggested, statistical quantity alone is not sufficient to explain their privation of treatment.5Equality to men was the driving factor for the Womens Movements, but this immediately suggests that women are to be studied as a different entity, unduly undermining any common notion of comparison from the start-off. Arguably however, this hypothesis is reliable on some levels, but the equality women strive for is not equality of treatment, but equality of outcome.There are various stereotypical explanations for womens criminality which throughout history have been dominated by internal reasons biology and psychology. However, what is interesting is how differently men are studied from the outside. Rather than stating a man has an innate propensity for military group and deviant behaviour in his biological make-up, theorists use external reasons much(prenominal) as economical and class based expectations to explain behaviour. Women do not get the benefit of all non-biological determinist reasoning and it could be concluded that it is entirely their fault for simply being born a woman (e.g. Lombrosos female born criminals).In summing up to this, female criminality needs to be studied so equality in outcome can be achieved from a justice perspective. Regarding the expectations of women in a social context, which will be discussed in depth later, if a woman was to act as expected, they are likely to be looked upon as the stereotypical light-colored and fragile being which needs protecting and this can be use to their advantage. But then also the opposite must no t be ignored in that if they do not conform to the stereotypical female state then they will be twice condemned, which is extraordinarily unfair from a feminist perspective.Substitution and the mediaHypothetically reversing the position of men and women, performed throughout this paper, when contrasting the conside proportionalityn and study given to both wakees, is a very useful tool to carry out gender issues in criminality.The proliferation of the media also works to the same effect in that when one is to contrast coverage of crimes committed by men, they seem super commonplace and the public hardly blink an eye, but when the likes of Myra Hindley and Rosemary West committed perchance masculine crimes, they were incredibly newsworthy. This can be down to the utmost shock that a woman has committed a crime and this produces a double deviance theory. Even now we do not expect women to conduct in a criminal and inappropriate fashion, and the public are utterly shocked when we hear that a mother with the qualities of being tender and caring has move her baby to death. Heidensohn concurs, women involved in very serious crimes seem to provide the media with some of their most compelling images of crime and deviance.6THE CRIMES WOMEN COMMIT INCIDENCE AND TRENDSDespite their various shortcomings, the methods for measuring crime, such as police recorded crime statistics published annually by the Home Office and the British Crime Survey (BCS), have been able to provide an indication of crime trends in England and Wales. The statistics must be viewed with wary eyes because of the discussion that surrounds unreported crime which leads to resources being allocated into improving the chomp of statistics it should not be ignored that this improvement could account for a vast increase in crime rates. In accompaniment to this, the numbers for women are very low to start with, so any slight increase could lead to a huge percentage increase which would skew the fi ndings. Despite this, they will be used to show the incidence and trends in womens offending from overall gender comparison, women under and over 18, the types of crime women are committing and finally cautioning rates.Gender and the feminist movementsAlthough women gained more(prenominal) presence in society, the vote, property rights and other social triumphs in the first wave of the feminist movements at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century, it is really only during the second wave in the 1960s and 1970s that there was a substantial change in the general and criminal behaviour of women which would attract academic and critical comment. The criminal statistics saw a huge boost in numbers of women represented across the board in 1958, the number of women found inculpatory for all indictable offences was 17,380 in 1965 this increased to 31,011, and amidst the full swing of the second wave of the feminist movement, in 1975 the number was at its highest at 60,356. In the 1960s, the ratio betwixt men and women again for being found guilty of all indictable offences went down slightly also (from 71 to 61). The following decades saw a gradual decrease in numbers in the same respect, and in 2007 the numbers were 267,000 men to 45,300 women for both sexes and the ratio still lies at 61. The trend to be carried forward is that it remains consistent that women commit less crimes than men overall, and the highest increase in female crime was in the 1970s.AgeThe estimated peak age of offending is 15 for girls (and 17 for boys). According to a Ministry of Justice publication Statistics on Women and the Criminal Justice System7 a higher proportion of all women arrested were aged between 10 and 17 than the proportion of men in that age group who were arrested, 25.7 per cent compared to 20.5 per cent. In addition to this, a study in 2009 by the Youth Justice Board8 found that the offences most frequently committed by adolescent girls are theft and interven tion stolen goods, and that there has been a proliferation in the furtheste of girls committing military unit against the person, specially if there is an existing relationship with the victim. It is also noted that recent use of alcohol is often linked to the offence/offending pattern. Home Office Statistics show the ratio of men to women found guilty or cautioned for all indictable offences is 31 for adolescents and 41 for adult women.From this two distinct trends can be deduced there is what Worral describes as a problem population of young girls committing more crime, especially violent crime, than their older equivalent, and, that as a women gets older she is less likely to commit crime (desistence).Types of CrimeAs Smart notices, the proportion of women who engage in crime varies quite considerably according to the nature of the offence9. From the Home Office statistics for 2008/0910 it can be seen that there are large differences between women and men in terms of their i nvolvement with the formal criminal justice system, notably, and obviously, less women across all areas of crime. However, there appears to be a rise in theft, especially shrinkage which Smart terms a sex- think offence, a crime that has a preponderance to be committed by one sex more than the other. It follows then that this is the only area where women make significant contribution to the numbers in 2007, 52,100 women were found guilty or cautioned for theft, the ratio between men and women is a mere 21. Although the ratio for fraud and forgery is also 21, the numbers are smaller 9,500 women being found guilty or cautioned.By contrast, the highest ratio between men and women is that of burglary at 151 in 2007.The most prolific offence seen in the statistics is that of violence, but it appears to be low-level violence, harassment compared to men. Although it appears that it is more large for adolescent girls recently, over the last few decades there has been a dramatic increase of violence in women of all ages. For example, in 1965, 827 were found guilty of violence against the person either murder, manslaughter, death by dangerous driving, assault or wounding. In 1975 this increased to 2,748 and then to 3,600 in 1985. In 1995 there was a slight, but not significant, decrease in (both men and) women committing violence against the person and until 2007 the number has steadily increased again to 4,500, the ratio since 1995 becoming closer (101 to 81 respectively).There has been a preponderance of women committing property offences, especially robbery as from the 1970s to present the incidence has more than quadrupled from 200 in 1978 to 900 in 2007.Finally, according to the Women and the Criminal Justice System statistics11, the violence that women commit is interfamily partners and electric shaverren, and homicides appear to be committed against intimate partners.Cautioning ratesWomen are more likely to be cautioned than men. Overall in 2007, 56% of women w ere cautioned instead of being officially processed by the courts for indictable offences compared to 36% of men. It was the same nearly 10 years ago also as in 1991, it was 54%. Looking at the cautioning rate for theft in 2007, out of 52,100 women, 26,000 were cautioned. In regards to violence against the person, 12,700 were cautioned out of 17,200 women.Since 2001 penalty notices for roughness (PND) can be issued for 50 or 80 depending on the severity of the offence. Inclusive of all ages, the Statistics on Women and the CJS found that in 2008/09 the top three reasons for takings a penalty notice of disorder (PND) to women were theft (retail under 200) 20,453 (49%) causing harassment alarm or distress 8,051 (20%) and being drunk and disorderly 7,520 (18%) notably all of these appearing to require no physical strength. Although the tally of PNDs being issued has decreased from 207,544 in 2007 to 176,164 in 2008, there was a smaller decrease for the amount issued to women tha n to men. According to the Ministry of Justice, PNDs were designed to be a simpler and swift way for the criminal justice system to grapple with low level criminal behaviour.CRIMINOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS unstained CriminologyEarly or classical criminologists accounted for female criminality on biological grounds describing the psychological, physiological and hormonal characteristics of female criminals, or emphasising that their crimes were sexually based. Biological determinism is perhaps historically the most common yet underdeveloped explanation for female criminality, and has dominated discourse for a dreadfully long time, even intertwining itself into modern and modern theories in spite of mass criticism. Women being studied biologically can be immediately contrasted with the study of male criminality which, as Morris suggests12, has nearly always used specifically socio-economic explanations such as subculture or labelling theory.Cesare Lombroso was the main projector of bio logical determinism, but this concept can be seen in the early works of W. I. Thomas and Otto Pollak in general, especially in regards to sexual delinquency. Thomas work was written in what Smart describes as the transitional period where criminology became more liberal. Pollak, although his work was carried out a long time after Lombrosos, is classed along with Lombroso and Thomas as a classical criminologist in that they all shared the same conventional views of women as Heidensohn summarises succinctly,Their view of women is heavily stereotyped. Women are delineate according to domestic and sexual roles they are dominated by biological imperatives they are emotional and irrational.13Modern biological explanations have been exampled in this paper to highlight that biological theories remain to this day and when read in light of social theories, biological explanations as far as they go to explain female criminality, tell us more about societys perception of women than anything el se.LombrosoOne cannot read any textbook related to theories of female criminality without encountering at least a brief mention of the criminological pioneer Cesare Lombroso, whose work, in item The Female Offender14, do specific mention of female criminals for perhaps the first time. Although completely discredited now, the mere fact that women became a topic of study was a phenomenal feat for criminology.With his son-in-law Ferrero and the help of others, along with the emphasis on scientific based study, Lombroso looked initially at 26 skulls and 5 skeletons of female offenders, namely prostitutes, 60 criminal subjects who died in prison and 17 others along with studying photo-portraits. The offences they were said to have committed were those such as infanticide, complicity in rape, arson, theft, homicide, abortion and poisoning. One of the studies within this work regarded the skull capacity and size. They were measured on account of each crime, and such conclusions were made for example, that fallen women have the smaller cranial capacity of all offering more analogy to the mentally afflicted than the sane. Essentially, Lombroso was explaining that women commit crime because of physical defects, and they were from the outset born criminals because of this. According to Newburns summary, Lombrosos female born criminal would specialise in not just one but several types of crime and surpasses her male similitude in the refined, diabolical cruelty in which she commits her crimes and therefore a female criminal is a true monster. Also, Lombrosos theory perhaps edged towards the later imagination of double deviance, in that the female criminal was doubly exceptionalbecause criminals are exceptions among civilised people and women are exceptions among criminals15.On the other hand, in explaining why women did not commit as much crime as men, he argued that firstly there were far fewer female born criminals than males and secondly and more offensive to read nowadays, he suggested criminal women were atavistic a manifestation of the idea that women were not fully evolved, had underdeveloped intelligence and had less scope for degeneration. Criminality therefore was defined as a mental illness, because womens normal psychology was piety and weakness which meant the normal woman would not have the predisposition to commit crimes due to lack of intelligence, and were not affected by environmental issues as men would be.Evaluating this theory with modern eyes, the criticisms of this study are obvious, but one cannot lose context of the time in which it was carried out. It was, despite its failure, an undoubtedly sincere attempt to justify certain beliefs and theories.16 However, it was completely ignored that the beliefs were founded on premises so nave. Also, the theory suggests that there should be more women committing crimes, but according to the statistics this is not true. Of course, the study is archaic and did not really progress un derstanding of female criminality, as Heidensohn saddles out, the observations made of the photographs are as objective as an adjudicator in a beauty contest. However, it does tell us about the perceptions of women in that time and that worked as a starting point for later theorists to use as a point of comparison and critique.ThomasThomas early work Sex and Society17was more akin to the works of Lombroso in that it studied women in regards to their physiological energy, suggesting that women were altogether less creative than men and therefore were not destined to commit crime. It was critically lacking in its pertinence to all women, as it focussed on immigrants and peasant women already seen as a lower species in that time, and again based ideas on detrimental social views of women.His later work, The Unadjusted Girl,18 however, was a first glance at the social reasons why women could commit crime, namely that women were more aware of their deprivation in society in his time o f composing and therefore likely to be frustrated, leading to the disorganisation of their life and potentially to sexual delinquency19. Society transformed whilst Thomas was writing and that because of the breakdown of traditional restraints on women they are more likely to be unadjusted. Here, instead of appreciating the progress, he displays contempt for the ideological change in society and therefore promotes repression. He theorised that women from the start were trying to find the legitimate role of the good wife, mother and dutiful daughter and in failure of this they acquired the illegitimate role, that is to say the chronic criminal or more commonly the sexual delinquent. The legitimate role was merely a sign of the times dictated by the middle-class norm, not an adequate explanation.PollakIn his work, The Criminality of Women in 1961, Pollaks argument was that women commit just as much crime as men but it is hidden, partly because of the social order in which women liv e, but also because of a womens physiology particularly in regards to sex. He agreed with Lombroso and Thomas in that the most likely degeneration of women was to prostitution, which was true at that time, but has no bearing on prostitution now. Prostitutes now, according to the Home Office website20 are not there voluntarily and are usually forced into it. He explained that women were empirically deceitful and manipulative in their nature because they conceal their menstruation all(prenominal) month, and that their passive nature during sexual intercourse enables women to recognise and acquire confidence in their ability to deceive men in all respects.21 Obviously Pollak could not get away from his apparent infuriation that it was men on show with their erection, and women could hide how they really felt. Here Pollak has taken this idea and translated it into the assumption that all women are vengeful, manipulative and cruel deceitful beings, not really moving on from the percept ions of women in Lombrosos time.Regarding the statistics, Pollak was perhaps correct when he argued that women are likely to commit offences against family members such as poisoning their husbands, sexually abusing or violent death their children. And also that persons are less likely to report a crime committed to them by a woman, as Smart notes the victims are usually children and are unable to report the crimes of their parents.22 But his basis for this conclusion is flawed as he overlooks crimes committed by men towards their family, makes judgements completely based on the sex discrimination in society at the time and again completely ignores that this is the case. Because of this, he would credibly be surprised by, and would not fit in with his conclusions, the amount of hidden wife battering and domestic abuse committed by men that has come to light recently if he were writing today.He also suggests that because of their nature, their acts are cunning and vengeful (putting p oison into their husbands food) explained because their vengeance is a product of their monthly reminder of their inferior status to men and they are the persons closely related to the domestic task of food preparation, again decisively based on the perceived domestic role of women at the time. His study does correspond with the current statistics in that women are likely commit crimes within the home, but his original study was not based on any real evidence but on societal assumptions and preconceptions about the behaviour of men and women, which at the time he was oblivious to the fact that the power and societal position of men and women was completely imbalanced. valour TheoryPollak, considering the very low number of female criminals, also proposed that men, especially those in the CJS, had an innate chivalry towards women. He argued that they have the same (he would argue misconceived) conceptions of women as his societal counterparts do that women are weak and fragile, but t hey have deceived themselves into believing this and not realised the true nature of women. They are therefore are less likely to report, charge and convict women for the offences they engage in.23 In all aspects of life, Pollak has described that women are treated less severely than men to their advantage and this discrimination is to mens disadvantage. However, as Smart notes, although recognising a darker side of chivalry he has not mentioned the disadvantages of this discrimination towards women, and does not criticise the double standards for men and women he treats it as the norm.However, it could be suggested that this theory is adequate because it is very much in effect today. The CJS currently appears to deploy this innate chivalry that protects women from the full rigours of the law, which could explain why a great deal more women are cautioned than men. Chivalry gains its credence because it is how one would expect women to be treated in a society which stereotypically vi ews them as delicate and in need of protection. Interestingly, the chivalrous nature of the law can be seen in practice as with regard to infanticide in particular, where the Home Office stated in rejecting the scheme to abolish this offenceThat a mother can be charged with infanticide on the basis of the ingredients for manslaughter is in go bying with the desire to treat such cases with compassion, in particular the desire not to force a mother to be brought face to face with the admission of whether or not she intended to kill her child.24 (Emphasis added)However, despite of this grave offence, it is mainly true today for perhaps petty crimes, where the statistics suggest that women are more likely to be cautioned than thoroughly processed in the CJS. But this could also be explained, not by chivalry, but because there is a strong urgency for diversion in the CJS, costs are always a priority, as is police time and resources. However, Pollaks theory generalises the lenience that women get, although it is relevant on some levels, it pays no heed to the fact that after due process, female murderers and those who commit very serious offences will go to prison.Modern Biological DeterminismHormonal and Mental ImbalanceAlthough Lombrosos work is said to have continued to exert entice long after it was written25, Edwards states that too much emphasis is sometimes placed on Lombroso as godfather of biological criminology, arguing that medical professionals, such as Icard, Krafft-Ebing and Krugelsten walked the terrain far in the first place Lombroso.Despite the criticisms of biological positivism, it cannot be ignored that all women have undeniable stages in their development cycle26 namely in menstruation, menopause and after well-favored birth.The common theory in this respect, for why women do commit crime, is that hormonal imbalance dictates their deviant behaviour, particularly violence. Even Lombroso found this link in his work after finding that 72 out o f 80 women arrested for resisting public officials were menstruating at the time27. Contemporary criminologists such as McClean, Wood, Devlin and Mercier have also claimed the physiological differences between men and women as a reason for criminality, but have not given substantial reasons as to why the rest of the female population have not committed crimes whilst going through the same crisis periods.28 Freud lends a suggestion here as he believed people are born with anti-social criminal qualities, but the disclose amongst them learn to control this. His theory suggests women do not have the fear of castration (as do men baring the Oedipus complex) which would be used to control their impulses, but suggests their passivity and want of affection controls them.It is commonly cognize that women experience mood swings, tension, water retention and headaches, however, 19th century theory exaggerates the mood swings into unaccountable violence and intolerable evil and cruelty.The wo rks of the late Dr Dalton whom coined the term premenstrual syndrome to describe the changes women experience in these times, and it is accepted by the law that there can be uncontrolled aggression at certain times of the month, and PMS has the possibility to be a mitigating factor in the sentencing of female criminals under diminished obligation in the law of evidence in England. For example, in a case in 1981, Christine English killed her boyfriend by driving into him. After pleading guilty to manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility due to pre-menstrual syndrome she was conditionally discharged.Furthermore, biological theory has manifested itself into the law of infanticide in that the Infanticide Act 1938 s.1 (1) states..where a woman by any wilful act or omission causes the death of her child being a child under the age of 12 months, but at the time of her act or omission the balance of her mind was disturbed by reason of her not having fully recovered from the eff ect of giving birth to the child or by reason of the effect of lactation.However it is curious to note that the medical profession refuses to accept this, in its definition, symptomatology, treatments or rates of manifestation29. Crimes such as infanticide can only be committed by a woman. Naturally, criminologists cannot in any way try to fit this crime into gender-neutral theories there has to be something particular about women. On the other hand, infanticide still remains, according to the Law Commission in a Home Office Consultation Paper in 2008, a piece of legislation which is a practicable legal solution to a particular set of circumstances, which gives something to consider if there was no crime of infanticide.Accepting PMS and infanticide in the law gets varied responses, usually either outrage that a woman could literally get away with murder, or that recognition of biological happenings that every woman has is a positive step, however the deep rooted connotations are far more complex. Some might see it as positive that women are getting recognition, whereas others would see retrogressive irony in play women want to gain equality, but they too are immersed in the want for allowances to be made for them, and also that PMS constructs womens normal experience and behaviour as abnormal30. Furthermore, the masculinity of law does not understand womens problems, so it is easier to accept mental imbalance than gainsay the norms of society, and so an account of PMS, as Raitt and Zeedyk suggest,is striking only because social norms dictate a particular baseline for womens behaviour and when they fail to meet that expectation, illness provides a convenient explanation31Consequently, Smart notes that, in principle, the law should be held to be equally applicable to all regardless of sex, (noting also, race, class and other distinctions) but in globe this does not happen. There are at all times a number of societal connotations or stereotypes, such as the chiv alrous nature of men, and the stereotypical way women are perceived which overshadow what should be happening, and determine what does happen in regard to the study of crime, and although this should not be the case, it does reveal the underlying, discriminatory views towards women that would give be abandoned for the sake of the quality of explanations for criminality.Finally, it would be interesting to use substitution here. Firstly if women were in power in society, there would be no explanations for deviant behaviour down to PMS, as having PMS at certain times or experiencing the effects of childbirth and lactation would be the norm. There would probably be explanations for why men behave they do, for example neurosis because they cannot have children.Brain FunctionAlthough truly biological theories seem to have disappeared from criminology32, Lansdell, in a study of laterality of verbal intelligence in the brain in 196233 noticed that when males and females had strokes or lobo tomies, their recovery processes were different even though the injury was the same women recovered better because they found that their brain hemispheres are more connected, enabling the female brain to possibly assimilate all sorts of information that male brains would keep separate. How this would become an explanation for female criminality would be quite complex and I would profess that it would see criminologists using these findings to merely support the well known stereotype that women can multitask. Nevertheless, it could be suggested that women have less chance of being caught as they could plan the offence thoroughly, or be able to perceive the consequences of their actions before they can perform an act which would render them criminal, but these would amount to huge generalisations, and would not conclusively explain why women do or do not commit crime.Although it is arguable that as with any disease of the body