Correlation between Gender and Crime

Introduction

Gender based crimes are those crimes committed against persons, whether male or
female, because of their sex and/or socially constructed gender roles. Gender-based crimes are
not always manifested as a form of sexual violence. They may include non-sexual attacks on
women and girls, and men and boys, because of their gender. These crimes include rape, sexual
slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization or any other form of
sexual violence.

However S. Jones (2008) suggested that women in prison were often

"co‐defendants" with a controlling man and therefore were pressured into criminality by
patriarchal control. This is an interesting contrast with Heidensohn's control theory, where
male control is presented as an explanation for not committing crime.

(Sally S. Simpson) Gender and crime, as a subject of intellectual curiosity, did not gain
much attention until the late 1960s and the 1970s. Previously, female offenders were an object
of curiosity, often understood and treated as an aberration to their sex. As a consequence of
the women’s movement, female offenders and, in particular, female victims of male violence,
moved front-and-center in the field of criminology. Feminists played a key role in this
emergence, launching critical assessments of the field’s neglect, both in terms of empirical
research and theoretical developments. These efforts produced a solid body of scholarship that
led non-feminist researchers to acknowledge that gender is a critical factor (some argue “the”
critical variable) that distinguishes who participates in crime and who does not. Over time,
scholarship shifted away from “women” as a category in favor of intersectional approaches
(i.e., gender, race, class, ethnicity, and sexuality), a focus on gender differences, and
postmodern theorizing (e.g., discourse analysis, rejection of structure, sexed bodies).
Nonetheless, debates about how best to study gender (positivism versus other epistemological
approaches), whether males and females have distinct pathways into crime (including violence
and the potential link between early victimization and the risk of later criminality and
victimization), and the impact of crime prevention policies such as mandatory arrest on female
victims remain unresolved.

Criminologists agree that the gender gap in crime is universal: Women are always and
everywhere less likely than men to commit criminal acts.

Is the gender gap stable or variant over time and across space? If there is variance, how
may it best be explained? Are the causes of female crime distinct from or similar to those of
male crime? Can traditional sociological theories of crime explain female crime and the gender
gap in crime? Do gender-neutral or gender-specific theories hold the most explanatory
promise?

We examine patterns of female offending and the gender gap. We review the “gender
equality hypothesis” as well as several recent developments in theorizing about gender
differences in crime. And we expand on a gendered paradigm for explaining female crime first
sketched elsewhere. We conclude with recommendations for future work.