Theroies Behind Female Criminality - Research Paper Example

In trying to explain the observed phenomena, the paper analyses critical theory, feminist theory, strain theory and biological determinism. Finally, solutions borrowed from various scholars in criminology would be proposed on how to prevent female criminality in the society. Female criminality has been neglected by researchers with authors conceiving it differently. The reason behind this could be because of the fewer women who break the law than men (Burgess-Proctor, 2006). The US Department of Justice (2006) noted that as of 2005, crimes committed by women stood at 19.

2% against 78.5% committed by men. But by 2008, the total males arrested for criminal offences had reduced to 75.5%, 65.2% being arrested for crimes related to property with more serious crimes attracting more male arrests (Jensen, 2012). Between 2004 and 2008, male arrests increased by 0.6% while female arrests increased by 5.1%. By mid 2008, there were about 207,700 women in jails in the US, an increase of about 33% from the year 2000. But the female population in the US comprises more than half the entire population which protects them from prosecution of crime or even detection.

Hence, female criminality deserves more research than what has been accomplished so far. More so, 60% of these women in prisons in the US have children to take care of. A typical female crime committer would be young and from a minority low socio-economic condition. Majority of them would have low education and inadequate job skills to fend for the families (Hudson, 2010). As earlier indicated, female criminality involves less of violent crimes and crimes related to property; the crimes committed by women tend to be less dangerous as compared to those committed by men, a gender typical pattern (Jensen, 2012).

These crimes do not violate the traditional norms for women where women would not be dominant but submissive instead. As such, it has been widely appreciated that women criminality could be considered as resistance or victimization as opposed to being criminality. Female criminality theories Also referred to as radical criminology theory, critical criminology theory has been cited by Smart (2009) as explaining female criminology. This theory perceives women from the economic structure aspect and the social structures conflicts.

Female criminality has been considered as a function of the existent capitalist system which prohibits women from equal access to economic benefits enjoyed by men. According to Price and Sokoloff (2004), spending most of the time at home hinders women from committing crime and if they do so, it would be in conjunction with their traditional roles as home makers, wives and mothers thus shoplifting, prostitution or fraud would be common crimes among them. In case of a violent crime, then it would be directed towards their lovers, husbands and children.

The feminist theory and feminism has been described by Price and Sokoloff (2004) as a theory with diverse perspective that women interests have been perceived overtly politically so as to propagate social justice and equality. This theory looks at male dominance against the women in the modern society and its effect against women and on crime. This has been likened by Smart (2009) to the focus on power which has caused most men to be on top of the corporate ladder than women. Jensen (2012) gives an example of the federal level where there were 17 out of 100 senators in the US in 2010 and 76 out of 435 in the