Males vs Females: Criminality

I suppose my recent viewings of the AMC TV show "Breaking Bad" have gotten me to be thinking about crime.  So for the purposes of this blog, I started thinking about gender differences and crime.  Although historically it seems that men commit more crimes than women, it seems to me that there are more and more women partaking in crimes.  Perhaps it is just that more attention is being paid to crimes involving women since they are less common.  But I personally think it may have to do with changing social roles.  This article I found is about those type of roles, but really with a focus from generations past.  I wonder if some changes we have seen in our society is leading to an increase in female perpetrators.  It makes me wonder.



from
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/who_commits_crime.htm

Who Commits Crime?

Statistics indicate that men are more likely to commit crime than women. For example, in 2002 80% of known offenders (481,000+) were men. As there are a number of problems with the reliability and validity of statistics, an alternative to information are self-report studies. These are anonymous and some believe because they all but guarantee anonymity they encourage respondents to be more truthful than if they were involved in an interview. In the past, sociologists tended to pay attention to only males committing crimes and ignored gender differences. This began to change in the 1970’s when feminists such as Carol Smart looked into woman and crime ...

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Sex role theory: this theory argues that boys and girls are socialized differently, therefore resulting in boys becoming more delinquent. There are different versions of this theory. Edwin Sutherland (1949) stated that there are clear gender differences when it comes to socialization. Firstly, girls are more supervised and more strictly controlled. Secondly, boys are encouraged to take risks and to be tough and aggressive. Therefore, boys have more of an opportunity and an inclination to commit crime. Talcott Parsons (1995) believes that there are clear and obvious gender roles within the nuclear family. The father performs roles which show him to be more of the leader and provider, whilst the mother performs the expressive role of giving emotional support and socializing children. These roles are rooted from the birth of their children as mothers have to give birth and nurse children.

Girls have a readily available female role model at home (their mother) whereas boys have less access to their male role model as traditionally the father was out at work for most of the time. Boys will be socialized largely by their mother and will tend to reject behavior that is seen as feminine as they compulsively pursue masculinity. Because of the emphasis on toughness and aggression this encourages anti-social behavior and delinquency. Albert Cohen (1955) believed that if boys don’t have that readily available role model, socialization can be a difficult process. Boys can experience anxiety about their identity as a young man and a solution for this is all male peer groups or street gangs. In these social contexts, aspects of masculinity can be expressed and rewarded. The idea of being tough and breaking rules can help to conform to the idea of masculinity.

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