Examine some of the reasons why females may be less likely than males to commit crimes

Leonard also suggests that women who commit crime are often labelled as unfeminine. This form of labelling acts as a deterrent for some women thinking about committing crime as most women are concerned about how they are perceived by the public. Postmodernists would also comment that in this postmodern era women (particularly female teenagers) are not too concerned about how they are perceived by others as the term gender has become more fluid and is not as strongly linked to a person's identity as it did in the past.

Liberal feminists such as Steffensmeier and Allan (1991) maintain that women are socialised into a different set of moral values than men. For example, they suggest that females are socialised to be caring, compassionate and are therefore less likely to commit crime, especially violent crime. Liberal and radical feminist theories have been questioned on empirical grounds. Panorama's research into violent women would seem to suggest that violent crime is in fact a significant and growing problem amongst females (e.g. girl gangs and female domestic abusers).

Radical feminists such as Heidensohn (1986) claim that women's lower crime rates can be explained in terms of patriarchy. She claims that both in the private sphere (family) and public sphere (work and leisure) men exert power and social control over women. Heidensohn argues that the consequence of this is that women have fewer opportunities to commit crime and acts of deviance. This suggests that the validity of liberal and radical feminist ideas have to be questioned. Liberal and radical feminist theories have been criticised on a theoretical level. Postmodern feminists would suggest the ideas are dated and do not take into account the significant changes which have occurred in women's lives, for example, women's greater (if unequal) access to paid employment. This suggests that liberal and radical feminist ideas only offer a partial view on crime and deviance.

Interactionist feminists reject all these explanations, seeing them as little more than a social construction. They point out that females are under-represented in the statistics and therefore the statistics do not present an accurate picture of the social distribution of criminality, which may mean that women don't in fact commit crime less.

Interactionist feminists share Becker's (1963) idea that the social distribution of crime and deviance is dependent on processes of social interaction between the deviant and powerful agencies of social control. Interactionist feminists suggest that females are less likely to be policed and labelled deviant than males. Perhaps this is because of sexism and chivalry within the police.

Official statistics indicate that women in all age groups appear to commit far less crime than men. This may be due to leniency towards female offenders, also known as the 'chivalry' thesis. Campbell (1981) conducted a self-report study and found that female suspects were more likely than male suspects to be cautioned rather than prosecuted. The rate of male: female juvenile offending was 1.33: 1.0 rather than the official figure of 8.95: 1.0, suggesting that women may not be committing less crime but rather that they are being punished less (Police let women off (Mott/Kalven & Zaesel), which then influences the official statistics. The official statistics thus represent an inaccurate view of female crime, suggesting that women commit less crime when in fact, they do not. However, Box (1981) reviewed the data from self-report studies in Britain and the USA and concluded that the official statistics on gender and crime were fairly accurate.

Frances Heidensohn argues that a lot of the reason why women are less involved in crime is to do with the way crime is gendered as a male activity. The dominant feminine roles in our society are ones where women are required to exhibit 'soft' characteristics; their role is to look beautiful and is highly sexualised in some social groups. Women who are violent and aggressive - characteristics required for some types of crime, are liable to be negatively labelled. Heidensohn suggests that control theory can be applied to gender and crime and can explain why so few women get involved in crime. She claims that patriarchal societies control women more effectively than men, making it more difficult for them to break the law. The time spent on housework and in caring for children means that women have little time for crime. Daughters are given less freedom than sons to come and go as they please because there is a significant amount of stigma attached to women who are seen to be promiscuous or 'loose'. Women often choose not to go out into public places because of fear of becoming a victim of crime or harassment. They also limit their behaviour in public for fear of being labelled a 'slag, slut or bitch'. Additionally, women are usually controlled by male superiors at work and may be intimidated by various forms of harassment. Therefore, being victims of crime themselves they come to fear crime and thus being unwilling to partake in crime themselves.

The relatively low levels of female Asian offending can be partly explained by higher levels of surveillance and social control experienced within the family. Similarly, white majority female youth are more likely to be raised in homes with both parents than their black female peers - and this type of family profile is statistically associated with lower rates of juvenile offending.

Functionalists would argue that women commit less crime because of the way they are socialised. Women are socialised to respect the cultural and social values and norms. Obeying the law is a social norm, therefore, women are socialised to adhere to the law. This means that women tend to commit less crime than men who are socialised differently.

In conclusion, despite these explanations offered for why women commit less crime than men, the area of gender and crime remains one that is largely understudied and neglected in the sociological world. It is strange that giving women's backgrounds they are still less likely than men to commit crimes seeing as how more women live in poverty than men. Yet is seems the explanations all boil down to the differences in the way women and men fear the consequences of crime and risk-taking.