Examining Crime And Gender Crimes Committed Criminology Essay

Examining Crime And Gender Crimes act Criminology EssayCriminology has treated womens role in crime with a extensive measure of indifference. The intellectual tradition from which criminology derives its conception of these sexes brinytains esteem for mens autonomy, intelligence and essence of character while disdaining women for their weaknesses of compliance and passivity. Women who conform as pure, obedient daughters, wives and mothers take in men and society (Feinman, 1994 16). Those women who dont, that is ar non-conforming, may simply be unity who questions established beliefs or practices, or cardinal who engages in activities associated with men, or one who commits a crime. These women argon doubly damned and doubly deviant (Bottoms, 1996 1). They atomic number 18 seen as mad non bad (Lloyd, 1995 36). These behaviors frequently lead to interpretations of beingnessness mentally ab general and runny. Those doing the defining, by the very act, are never specify as other, but are the norm. As men are the norm, women are deviant. Women are defined in reference to men (Lloyd, 1995 xvii). In the linguistic process of Young (1990), sexual difference is one of the ways in which normal is marked out from deviant (Young, 1990 ix). So why do these differences make up in spite of appearance the criminal umpire system and society as a whole? In order to understand why offending and penalty differs between genders it is important to ac hunchledge and analyses past tense perceptions, theories and perspectives from predominant sociologists and criminologists of that time towards women in society.Up until the turn of the century, women were primarily perceived as sexual objects and evaluate to remain within priapic dominated ideologies such as homemaker, carer and nurturer pickings second place after men (Oakley, 1985 56). Women who strayed from the norm were severely punished, null of any opportunities to explain their actions. Perhaps interventio ns from Elizabeth Fry in the early 19th century campaigning for women to be housed in separate prisons from men and offered refilling could be marked as the starting point for intense studies being conducted into relationships between women and crime. The conception at that time was that women must be protected from, sooner than held responsible for their criminal actions. Unfortunately, such intervention only caused ingratiatory rather than coercion, that is, women became segregated even more as individual members of their biotic community (Bardsley, 1987 37).Later in the late nineteenth century, Lombroso and Ferrero (1895) wrote a book called, The distaff Offender. Their theories were based on atavism. Atavism refers to the belief that all individuals displaying anti-social behaviour were biologic throwbacks (Smart, 1978 32). The born feminine criminal was perceived to have the criminal qualities of the mannish plus the worst characteristics of women. consort to Lombroso and Ferrero (1895), these included deceitfulness, cunning and spite among others and were not apparent among males. This fall outed to indicate that criminal women were genetically more male than feminine, thereof biologically abnormal. Criminality in men was a common accept of their natural characteristics, whereby women, their biologically-determined nature was antithetical to crime. Female social deviants or criminals who did not act according to pre-defined standards were diagnosed as pathological and requiring treatment, they were to be cured or removed (Lombroso and Ferrero, 1895 43).Other predominant theorists such as Thomas (1907) and later, pollack (1961), believed that criminality was a pathology and socially induced rather than biologically inherited. As Thomas (1967) says, the girl as a child does not know she has any particular value until she learns it from others (Thomas, 1967 68). Pollack (1961) believed, it is the learned behaviour from a very young age that l eads girls into a masked character of female criminality, that is, how it was and still is concealed through under-reporting and low detection rates of female offenders. He further states, in our male-dominated culture, women have always been considered strange, secretive and sometimes dangerous (Pollack, 1961 149). A greater leniency towards women by police and the justice system take to be addressed especially if a neat equality of genders is to be achieved in such a complicated gentleman .Although it may be dependable that society has changed since the days of Lombroso and Ferrero, past theories appear to remain within much of todays criminal justice system. Women have so many choices of which they didnt before. It would appear naive to assume that women and crime may be explained by any one theory. Any crime for that matter, whether male or female, may not be explained by any one theory. It is an established and non-arguable fact that males and females differ biologically an d sociological influences, such as gender-specific role-playing appears to uphold within most families. Its a matter of proportion not difference. According to Edwards (1984), the enemy is within every woman, but is not her reproductive biology, rather it is the habit regarding it into which she has been led by centuries of male domination (Edwards, 1984 91).Many suggest, the main culprit for aggression as seen in many men is testosterone. This internal secretion appears responsible for much of the male crime, even in todays society of increase knowledge on the subject. In contrast, extensive research all over the past twenty-five years done on the testosterone/aggression link center on prenatal testosterone predisposing boys to be rougher than girls, concluded it was very difficult to lay down any connection between testosterone and aggressive behaviour (Lloyd, 1995 26). Cross- ethnic studies of ninety-five societies revealed fourty -seven percent of them were free of rape wh ile at least 33 societies were free of war and interpersonal violence was extremely rare (Meidzian, 1992 74). base on these studies, it may be evident to suggest that sociological factors and environmental influences appear to have greater credibility in explaining criminal behaviour, whether male or female.As most women commit crimes of a lesser rampageous nature such as shop-lifting, leniency is given to them from law enforcement officers and judges. It is true that many women use their femininity to their advantage which makes it very difficult to argue equal rights for both sexes (Lloyd, 1995 56). This unequal position of women in society collect to social oppression and economic dependency on men and the state, needs to be addressed. Offences by women remain sexualised and pathologised. In most ways, crimes women commit are considered to be final outward manifestations of an inner medical imbalance or social instability. Their punishment appears to be aimed principally at t reatment and resocialisation (Edwards, 1984 216). The victimisation of women in medicine seems to be for her own good or in her best interests.Changing social and economic conditions, environmental influences, cultural traditions and physiological factors must be taken into account when dealing with crime. It has only been over the last thirty to fourty years that women have empowered themselves and fought for equality within all areas of society. After so many centuries of oppression and inequality, these changes can not be expected to happen over night. It is essential that society be well informed in the quest for justice. Creating a framework that is really equitable requires a proper understanding of life beyond the court of justice door. The world is infused with gender bias and no single explanation exists for valet behaviour or passivity or aggression. A complex interplay of cultural and biological factors makes people as individuals. Behaviour may be changed. any have the potential for aggression and compliance. The view that women are other, inferior and unstable because of their hormones and emotions makes it all too easy to see them, by their very nature, as unstable, irrational, neurotic and MAD.Bardsley, B. (1987) Flowers in Hell an investigation into women and crime, Pandora Press, London.Bottoms, A. (1996) Sexism and the Female Offender, Gower Publishing, Sydney.Carrington, K. (1993) Offending Girls, Allen and Unwin, Sydney.Edwards, S. (1984) Women on Trial, Manchester University Press, newfound Hampshire.Feinman, C. (1994) Women ion the Criminal Justice System, Praeger Publishers, Westport.Lloyd, A. (1995) Doubly Deviant, Doubly Damned, Penguin, Sydney.Lombroso, C. and Ferrero, W. (1895) The Female Offender, fisherman Unwin, London.Miedzian, M. (1992) Boys will be boys Breaking the Link Between Masculinity and Violence, amazon Press, London.Oakley, A. (1985) Gender and Society, Adlershot Gower, London.Pollak, O. (1961( The Criminality o f Women, A.S. Barnes, New York.Smart, C. (1978) Women, Crime and Criminology, Routledge London.Thomas, W. (1967) The Unadjusted Girl, Harper and Row, New York.Young, A. (1990) Femininity in Dessent, Routledge, London.