SOC219H5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: General Strain Theory, Feminist School Of Criminology, Cing
1
Kruttschnitt-gender and crime
Their review focused heavily on the gender gap in crime and the problemsinherent i
n the gender equality or liberation hypothesis generated in the 1970sto explain the
rise in female offending.
Daly & Chesney-
Lind identified a twofold focus in the early research on womenand crime: the gende
r gap or gender ratio problem, which attempts to explainthe sex difference in offend
ing rates, and the generalizability problem, whichexamines whether the same theor
etical constructs can be used to explain maleand female offending.
Among these domains of feminist research, the work on gendered crime is mostpro
nounced; including the work on the processing of offenders, it representsone-
half of the scholarship in feminist criminology.
I included articles that addressed the processing of female offenders as a subsetof g
endered crime because what happens to men and women in adjudicationand senten
cing can have substantial effects on their subsequent offending lives.
Unlike their predecessors who charted changes in female property offending, schola
rs today focus much of their research on violent crime.
Some insights into both the absolute sex differences in crime and the sex-
baseddifferences in declining rates of offending may be found in work that focuses o
nwhether middle-range crime theories can account for these sex-baseddisparities.
First, as to the absolute differences, a growing body of research emanatingfrom test
s of general strain theory provides some evidence that emotions aregendered in wa
ys that may suppress female offending or aggravate maleoffending.
A second line of research, emanating from learning theory, focuses on the mostprox
imal cause of offending-delinquent peers-to explain the gender gap inoffending.
The bulk of this research suggests that although there are level differences inmale a
nd female offending, the causal mechanisms driving the offendingbehaviors are gen
erally gender neutral.
From a feminist perspective, both theories are conceptual hybrids, as theyaddress t
he gender gap in crime while trying to determine whether gender-
neutral mechanisms drive offending.
Although results vary somewhat depending on the measures of self-
control andantisocial behavior, there is evidence of gender invariance in the effects
of lowself-control on criminal offending.
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Document Summary
Their review focused heavily on the gender gap in crime and the problemsinherent i n the gender equality or liberation hypothesis generated in the 1970sto explain the rise in female offending. Among these domains of feminist research, the work on gendered crime is mostpro nounced; including the work on the processing of offenders, it representsone- half of the scholarship in feminist criminology. I included articles that addressed the processing of female offenders as a subsetof g endered crime because what happens to men and women in adjudicationand senten cing can have substantial effects on their subsequent offending lives. Unlike their predecessors who charted changes in female property offending, schola rs today focus much of their research on violent crime. Some insights into both the absolute sex differences in crime and the sex- baseddifferences in declining rates of offending may be found in work that focuses o nwhether middle-range crime theories can account for these sex-baseddisparities.
