Female Criminality

The findings on the website show how female offenders have been perceived as less violent offender compared to males (NCJRS). Although, in the past females were perceived to commit minor offenses, but there has been a rise in females committing violent offense (NCJRS). There has also been a rise in the percentage of female offender overall, which younger girls represent a larger proportion of juvenile arrest (NCJRS). The reason for this could be many younger girls are experiencing trauma, abuse, violence, and poverty issues at home. For example, if a younger female leaves in a home and all she sees is her mother and father fight, which could lead her to think that it’s okay. She also gets beaten by her father and her mother never say anything so she might think it’s a way of life. This cause for whenever this younger female gets into a confrontation at school, she automatically leads to violence. The reason why is that’s all she seen growing up. The victimization that the female offender go through cause them to have different needs compared to male offenders. The findings on NCJRS states how due to the different victimization females go through they are more likely to be addicted to drugs and have mental

The United States criminal justice system, an outwardly fair organization of integrity and justice, is a perfect example of a seemingly equal situation, which turns out to be anything but for women. The policies imposed in the criminal justice system affect men and women in extremely dissimilar manners. I plan to examine how gender intersects with the understanding of crime and the criminal justice system. Gender plays a significant role in understanding who commits what types of crimes, why they do so, who is most often victimized, and how the criminal justice system responds to these victims and offenders. In order to understand the current state of women and the way in which gender relates to crime and criminal justice, it is first

According to Lilly, Cullen, and Ball (232) Feminist theory has been on the back burner of modern criminology until the late 19th century. As with the other criminology theories there are many thoughts and ideas on why females commit crimes. In the beginning the theories seem to revolve around the victimization of the female gender. Then criminologist took a look at female delinquency, prostitution, and gender inequality in the criminal justice system. Lilly (233) wrote that Lombroso used physiological traits to determine what type of women would commit crime. Lombroso also argued that the women that committed the most crime were more masculine then the women who did not commit crime. He used physiological immobility, and passivity to make the argument. Lilly (235) also wrote that Sigmund Freud believed the reason women committed crime was because they has “penis envy”. Since women were physical different than men, women would become more aggressive trying to act like the male counterpart in order to fit in with the status quo.

The prison world is predominately male dominated. As the years go by, female incarceration levels have been rapidly increasing. The prisons in early days didn’t have to worry about dealing with two different types of inmates as there were not that many females incarcerated. While male and female inmates do have some similarities, they also have some distinct differences. The way they conduct themselves in prison are different; as are they way they interact with other inmates. Males typically are in prison for more violent crimes than women, making the maximum security prisons mainly male. Throughout this paper, these differences and a few similarities are discussed.

It is a common perception that men are more likely to commit crime than women and according to statistics in 2012, 85% of known offenders in England and Wales were males and women only represents 5% of the prison population. However in the last ten years, the number of females that have been prosecuted is thought to have risen by 6%.

When one thinks of the juvenile corrections system, they tend to gender this institution, focusing mainly on young boys. Due to this, one often neglects the thought there are also young girls that are in the system. This may be due to the fact that when compared to young boys within the juvenile corrections system, in previous years the girls consisted of a small portion within in this space. However, according to recent studies, girls in the juvenile system has been rapidly increasing over the last 20 years (Levintova, 2015). This is an issue which needs to be acknowledge due to the fact that young women are caught in this system for starkly contrasting reasons when compared to young males. These reasonings are described in the book Girls in Trouble with the Law by Laurie Schaffner which we will further explore.

Females are said to be very emotional and if they were troublemakers at a young age they are said to possess “masculine traits and characteristics” (Siegal & Walsh, 2015). Males tend to commit crimes like robbery, assault and burglary. This has changed in the last decade. The rate of offending has decreased for males by 27 percent and females about 15 percent. “Girls have increased their

Criminality is still assumed to be a masculine characteristic and women lawbreakers are therefore observed to be either ‘not women’ or ‘not criminals’ (Worrall 1990, p. 31). Female offenders are hallmarked for tireless and inescapable coverage if they fit into the rewarding newsworthy categories of violent or sexual. It is always important to note the reason for overrepresentation of women criminals in the media. “Women who commit serious offences are judged to have transgressed two sets of laws: criminal laws and the laws of nature” (Jewkes 2011, p. 125). Such women are hence “doubly deviant and doubly damned” (Lloyd, 1995). When women commit very serious crimes, such as murder, they attract

Gender is clearly one of the major factors in the causes of crime as men commit far more crimes than women. “90% of those found guilty are men.” – the poverty site

There are many factors that inhibit women to commit violent crimes. Most women suffer from substance abuse, spouse abuse and mental issues. The most common risk is being previously being abused earlier in life. A survey conducted in 2002 reported that thirty six percent of all female

Despite the general consensus that the number of females involved in crime is continuing to rise, males are still the dominant gender committing crimes, especially for violent offences. This may be why there is a continued lack of research on female offenders using a gender specific approach that accounts for gender differences. Historically, female offenders have been primarily studied using a gender-neutral model comprising mainly male offenders. Although there is support that a gender-neutral model can effectively apply to both male and female offenders (van der Knaap et al. 2012), there has been an ongoing debate on whether the pathways and processes that lead to female offending can be successfully explained and ultimately applied to interventions and preventions by using theories originally created to explain male crime (Steffensmeier & Allan, 1996).

Since 1970, there has been an increasing and alarming rise 138 percent of violent crimes committed by women. Still, while the equivalent percentage compared to male violence is small 15 percent to 85 percent the fact that the numbers have elevated so drastically points to something changing in society.

Even though it is generally believed that men commit more crimes than women, there are some instances in which women commit a greater percentage of the crimes. One example would be shoplifting, in which some estimates are as high as 80% of all shoplifters being women, and although men

Feminist criminology emerged out of the realisation that criminology has from its inception centred on men and the crimes they commit. Although it can be argued female criminality was researched by Lombroso, as far back as 1800’s, female crime, it’s causes and the impact in which it had on society was largely ignored by the criminological futurity. Those Criminologist who did attempt to research female crime such as Thomas and Pollak were not only very damning of women but were also very condescending, choosing to stereotype them as either Madonna or whore (Feinman).

Female Criminality consists of several outdated statistics regarding the rise of female offending. However, in viewing the current research on the subject, it appears that the overall theme of this dissertation's discussion is still relevant despite changes in the accompanying statistics as seen in viewing the following topics: the rise in female offending; the continual rise that females are committing more crimes than men; and the types of crimes that women are committing. In viewing Bruce Gross's 2009 article, "Battle of the Sexes: The Nature of Female Delinquency," as well as Elizabeth Cauffman's 2008 article, "Understanding the Female Offender," one can begin to see where current statistics regarding the female criminal lie.