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Criminal Stereotypes

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Introduction A stereotype is a generalization about a particular social group about their characteristics (American Psychological Association, 2007). With this definition we realize that people are stereotyped all the time. There are stereotypes about religion, race, gender, and age. There are even the stereotypes that are on a smaller scale as in hair or eye color, alcoholics, and size (“Stereotype examples”, 2014). These stereotypes can be both positive and negative just depending on the context. Some stereotypes can be negative to both men and women is that men are only allowed to be doctors. This could mean that men shouldn’t be nurses or women can not be doctors. Either way that stereotype is on peoples minds when the walk into a hospital. …show more content…

These stereotypes are used The stereotype of females being weaker then males has been studied and reiterated by Woodhams et al. (2012) which looked into rape cases and the victims. The victims were as expected, females that were seen as unable to protect themselves. These females were primarily white and young with ages ranging from sixteen to thirty. There were a few rape cases that the females was older, ages from sixty-two to eighty, and are seen as more vulnerable then the younger generation which makes then better targets. The information gathered by Woodhams et al. (2012) was previously found by Quillian and Pager (2010) about who the victim was and why they were …show more content…

There are stereotypes about different neighborhoods that are seen as safer then others by the amenities that the neighborhoods have (Pickett et al., 2012). The neighborhoods with fences and neighborhood watches are seen as safer then a neighborhood that is not watched as regularly. Theses stereotypes can be helpful when choosing a neighborhood that will fit your lifestyle. Also a stereotype of criminals is that they are unemployed. However, a study conducted by Beckley in 2008 found that a majority of the criminals that participated in the study was employed or recently employed. That shows that the stereotype of criminals being unemployed is

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