Although the claim that women are naturally more likely to conceal crimes can be readily dismissed, the possibility that women are treated more leniently by the legal authorities warranted closer examination.
Criminality, sex and the law
In theory at least, the vast majority of laws are sex blind: the possibility of being charged or the type of offence for which you are charged does not depend upon your sex. However, there are a few laws that only apply to members of one sex. For example, only men can be convicted of rape in Britain. On the other hand only women can be convicted of infanticide or soliciting as prostitutes. In reality, only a very small proportion of crimes come into one of these categories and legal definitions therefore make little difference to the overall statistics for male and female crime.
Leniency towards female offenders
Some self-report studies have supported Pollak’s claim that female offenders are more likely to escape conviction than males. Writing in 1981, Anne Campbell pointed out that female suspects were more likely than male suspects to be cautioned rather than prosecuted. Official statistics show that this remains true. A study by Hilary Allen based upon an examination of 1987 statistics showed apparent leniency towards female offenders. For example 73% of women but only 54% of males found guilty of indictable motoring offences were given fines. This difference very largely resulted from more men being given prison sentences.
Evidence against the ‘chivalry’ thesis
David P. Farrington and Allison Morris conducted a study of sentencing in Magistrates Courts. Farrington and Morris examined data on sentencing for 408 offences of theft in Cambridge in the same year. Some 110 of these offences were committed by women.
Although the men received more severe sentences than women, the research found that the differences disappeared when severity of offences was taken into account. Farrington and Morris concluded ‘there was no independent effect of sex on sentence severity.’
Criminal justice as biased towards women
A different point of view is put forward by those who argue that women are treated more harshly by the criminal justice system than men. Frances Heidensohn argues that women are treated more harshly when they deviate from societal norms of female sexuality. For example, sexually promiscuous girls are more likely to be taken into care than similar boys.
To Heidensohn the justice system is influenced by attitudes to gender in society as a whole. These are based upon ‘dual’ and ‘confused’ assumptions about women which see women as ‘virgin and whore, witch and wife, Madonna and Magdalene’
Men’s offences are often put down to aggression or greed. Men are more likely to be fined and imprisoned partly because they are seen as being less central to family life than women. Women are seen as being inherently deviant than men and courts find it hard to understand their criminal activity. Consequently courts are more likely to order reports on female offenders in the search for ‘underlying psychological meanings’. Probation may be used instead of a fine with the intention of helping the female offender.
The causes of female crime
Female crime and women’s liberation
Freda Alder – the ‘new female criminal’
In 1975 the American writer Freda Alder claimed that women’s liberation had led to a new type of female criminal and an increase in women’s contribution to crime.
She argues that differences in the behaviour of males and females are socially determined, and changes in society have led to changes in that behaviour.
Alder quotes numerous statistics which appeared to show increasing female involvement in crime, particularly in some crimes which had traditionally been committed by men.
To Alder this suggested that future generations of adult criminals would show a narrowing gap in crime rates of males and females. Alder believed that the main reason was that women were taking on male social roles in both legitimate and illegitimate areas of activities.
As women entered the labour force in increasing numbers, they wanted increased representation in jobs previously reserved for men. The same applied in criminal careers. ‘The female criminal knows too much to pretend, or return to her former role as a second-rate criminal confined to “feminine” crimes such as shoplifting and prostitution.’ Instead women were getting involved in robbing banks, mugging, loan sharking and even murder.
Alder’s views proved to be very controversial, particularly as they could be used to imply that women’s liberation was a bad thing. They stimulated considerable research into the question of whether women’s crime was increasing.
Recent Home Office studies have looked at these issues and reported that:
- Women are far less likely than men to receive a custodial sentence for virtually all indictable offences except drugs
-
When women do receive prison sentences these tend to be shorter than men’s
- One of the reasons for this is that women are less likely to be dealt with at the Crown Court
- Women are less likely to receive prison sentences irrespective of the number of previous offences
(Hedderman and Hough 1994).
These findings call into question claims that the criminal justice system is systematically more severe towards women than men. If anything, the evidence points to more lenient treatment of women.’ However Mary Eaton found that courts tended to look carefully at female offenders’ family and domestic situations, reflecting notions of the ‘ideal’ women. When women were seen to be capable of looking after her children and her husband was available to support her, the courts may be more lenient (Eaton 1996).
Hedderman and Gelsthorpe’s study in 1997 found that women were more leniently treated than men. However, the situation was complicated because the courts fined women less frequently than men, and more were likely to impose a conditional discharge. As a consequence repeat female offenders were more likely to be given a community penalty for subsequent offences. In 1998 statistics showed that twice as many men as women sentenced for indictable offences received a custodial sentence.
Home Office researchers who conducted a study of 3,000 sentencing cases in the magistrates’ courts and 1,800 in the Crown Court commented:
In this study a higher proportion of male first offenders received a custodial sentence than female first offenders in the Crown Court. So few first offenders received custodial sentences in the magistrate’s courts sample, that the difference was not significant. Men with previous convictions were four times has likely to receive a custodial sentence than women who were repeat offenders in the magistrate’s courts. In the Crown Court male repeat offenders were one-and-a-half times as likely to receive a custodial sentence as women.
Further analysis confirmed that men had a significantly higher probability of receiving a custodial sentence than women even when other factors were taken into account.
(Davis, Croall and Tyrer 1999 pp 225-226).
