Feminist Theory Of Criminology Essay

Furthermore, another stereotype against women is clearly stated by Pollak. According to Pollak’s theory, men commit crimes to ‘protect’ women and because as he kindly states, “the instigation of women” is the reason why men commit crimes (Anderson, 1976). According psychologists such as Pollak, Freud, Rogers and Thomas, women only commit crimes because they are “jealous” of men and therefore develop certain complex such as the penis envy. In addition, these psychologists claim that women use their sexuality in other to achieve what they want, when they want it and however they want it. As a result, the criminal justice system incarcerates women longer than men even if they have been convicted for the same offence(s) as they counterpart because they believe that they are “protecting” these women (Anderson, 1976).

With this in mind, this study shows that research could contribute to crime control theories considering it identified a correlation between gender and crime by focusing on the physical attributes of criminals. However, this theory for the physical differentiation between criminal and non-criminals is viewed by modern studies as statistically insignificant. Furthermore, this suggests that crime control has change over recent years considering theories have been challenged by researchers using more reliable and valid measures. In addition to the relationship between criminality and gender, Klien (1973:185) states that, “These characteristics are of physiological or psychological nature and are uniformly based on implicit or explicit assumptions about the inherent nature of women. This nature is universal, rather than existing within a specific historical framework.” In other words, the observable difference in crime rates between criminal and non-criminal women might have been due to economic, social, and political factors. As a result, several criminologists have tried to establish a theory that explains all crime is still possible, while others have suggested that crime control should focus on understanding particular types of crimes instead. Therefore, it is clear that crime control has been modified over the years to accommodate for more rounded theories.

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

In viewing the information contained in the aforementioned articles, one can immediately understand the underlying reasons that women are committing more crimes than men. Through the mid-1990s, the arrest rates of both genders has increased steadily, with the male rate far exceeding that of females (Gross, 2009, pp. 84). However, in recent years, a shift has been seen, with the numbers of female offenders rising significantly, especially at the juvenile level, which significantly raises the likelihood of re-offending later in life. As such, an understanding of the differences between the sexes in terms of the reasoning behind their offenses has long been researched.

Gender inequality still plays a huge role in today’s society. Women comprise only a small percentage of the local law enforcement agencies across the nation. Women have been a part of law enforcement since the 20th century but have only been noticed within the last 40 years. Back in the 1970’s women rarely held positions in law enforcement and if they did it was mainly clerical/desk positions. Even though the amount of women in law enforcement today has increased, women still only make up roughly around 13 percent of the law enforcement work force (Public). Women can make such an impact in the Law Enforcement field if given a fair chance but they may face many problems when doing so. Some say that women don’t belong, while others suggest

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.

Firstly, Feminism is a conflict theory that believes that all religions are instruments set up by men to oppress women with the set of beliefs and practices. There are many different branches of feminism; the ones being evaluated are called Liberal, Radical and Marxist feminists. Feminists believe that society is malestream and not mainstream as people believe. The first main flaw in feminist theory is the fact that feminists only examine society from the viewpoint of women, they do this because they believe they are in fact helping fight against the oppression of women but the problem is that they do not examine the views of many male counterparts and therefore cannot help us completely understand our society. The main differentiation between the different feminist theories is the way that the oppression against women is caused.

The way feminism relates to criminology shows it has had an impact, this has led to change as well as differences in opinion. Feminism was introduced as a way to focus on destroying the inequalities between men and women. According to the views and opinions on criminal or deviant behaviour in the 1970s is that the relations made lead to further information been discovered in the 1980s and 1990s. Also, different types of feminism were made known such as liberal, socialists, radical and bourgeois.

Statistics show that the number of female offenders in the legal system has been increasing steadily. The number of female offenders entering the American justice system is growing at a rate faster than males. Statistics from the United States in 2010 show the female offender population to be increasing by 2.7% each year, compared to the male population at a rate of 1.8% each year, with similar statistics being seen in other Western countries (West & Sabol, 2010). The continued increase has made understanding female offenders and their catalysts for committing crime more imperative.

Feminist theory aims to understand the nature of gender inequality and focuses on gender politics, power relations and sexuality. Feminist political activism campaigns on issues such as reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay, sexual harassment, discrimination and sexual violence. Themes explored in feminism include discrimination, stereotyping, objectification, sexual objectification, oppression and

The main weakness of feminist theories is that they are from a woman centered viewpoint. While the theories also mention social problems not strictly related to women, it still comes from that viewpoint. This creates a weakness of perspective, men and women do see the world differently. If you have a theory that is solely from the perspective of men or women then you are removing something intangible from that theory. Theories should be put forth that take into account a woman’s perspective, but the theories should also have the male perspective so that both viewpoints are clearly visible. It may seem a small complaint, but this small complaint can be the difference between seeing the bigger picture, or missing something critical because you only took a cursory look.

All feminist theorists share a common focus on gender inequality; however feminism can be described as a set of perspectives rather than a single viewpoint (Strider, N.d.). Therefore, challenging gender biasness in the criminal justice system from the feminist perspective can take many forms given the fact that there a lot of sources of gender inequality in the system. For example, the early theories of criminal behavior largely ignored gender all together and as a result the field has become largely male dominated and males have also been shown to commit more crimes than women on average.

I believe that this train of thought addresses the cause of criminal behavior in women because many viewpoints that fall under the umbrella of feminism are given as different causes of criminal conduct in women .Feminist criminology lacks evidence of a woman’s crime. Women's activist theories not only strive to elucidate criminal wrong doing, exploitation and additionally join together theory with practice to create more impartial answers for the crime at hand.

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).

Most of the theories of crime was developed to explain male crimes by male criminologists. For decades, women offending challenges traditional theoretical explanations of crime, which were developed to explain male offenders. There were a few debates that indicate the concern of whether the theories were being used equally to explain both female and male crime. Criminologists came to a conclusion that the traditional theories are male-specific theories. For that particular reason, they argue that those theories are not suitable to explain female crimes. However, both the social process and traditional structure theories explain a gender neutrality in crime. They also give a better understanding for both male and female crime.