Precursors for Criminal Activity in Women

Jonathan Fink

Midlands Technical College


Precursors for Criminal Activity in Women

        The article that I am discussing in this paper is “Precursors and correlates of criminal behavior in women”. It was the research was done by Julie Messer, Barbara Maughan, David Quinton, and Alan Taylor. There were several colleges, and research facilities that they used but they did not specify whether they provided funding or facilities. They used the Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, MRC Social, Centre for Family Policy and Child Welfare, School for Policy Studies, and the University of Bristol.

        This studies goal was to find the precursors that would increase specific criminal activities in women. One would think that there are already many studies that have been done to determine what precursors affect criminal activity. And there is a plethora of research on criminal determinates. The only problem is that the majority of them focus on men. According to the study they would even say that in most studies just “being male” is considered to be a determinate. Because of this women in the criminal precursor studies are almost never considered. This study suggested that although women and men’s precursors may have links there are many differences.

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        When planning the groups for the study they used looked at the female’s family situation as the independent variable. The first sample consists of women who had to be put in an institutional care because of family breakdown (Messer 2004: p 87). The second sample was women that lived in the same area and economic situation, but remained with the same family throughout there childhood (Messer 2004: p 87).  It was a longitudinal study that looked at several measures throughout the women’s lives, at specified intervals (Messer 2004: p 87).  These measures were looked for in the interviews. Several of ...

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