The Feminist School of Criminology - Essay Example

FEMINIST CRIMINOLOGY The Feminist School of criminology developed in the late 1960s and into the 1970s as a reaction against the gender distortions and stereotyping within traditional criminology. It was closely associated with the emergence of the Second Wave of feminism and it speaks with multiple viewpoints developed from different feminist writers. There is a range from Marxist and Socialist to Liberal feminism addressing the "gender ratio" problem (i.e. why women are less likely than men to commit crime) or the generalisation problem (i.e. "adding" women to male knowledge, by which the findings from research on men are generalised to women). The facts about crime tend to be based on the sex of the offender and not the crime itself. This 'sexism' in criminology also influences the sentencing, punishment, and imprisonment of women who are not expected to be criminals and, if they are, they are described as 'mad not bad'. The attribution of madness to women flows from the entirely outdated concept that women who conform are pure, obedient daughters, wives and mothers who benefit society and men. If they dare to go against their natural biological traits of 'passivity' and a 'weakness of compliance', they must be mentally ill: a classic androcentric view which has been held by few academics in decades. Women have been defined as different from men and, hence, inferior; that stigma has acted to deny them their full civil rights and access to societal resources (Naffine: 1996). Feminists waves may have brought greater liberation to women, but it has not changed their pattern of crime. Women are still much less likely to commit crime, this includes both blue and white collar crime. Feminist criminology is conflict based calling for the downgrading of many dominant crime theories, as they were constructed without consideration for feminist viewpoints. Feminists' now call for the inclusion of women into criminological teaching, research, theory and publications (and not only because they are after jobs and nice fat grants). Most criminological texts (from the Nineteenth Century) and discussions almost forget about women as they are afforded little attention as they are grouped with juvenile delinquents and the mentally insane. Smart argues this grouping with the more neglected members of the criminal world is a reflection of the females role in the community, women have always lacked "civil and legal status", therefore it is acceptable for women to be grouped with juvenile offenders and mentally challenged offenders. Smart continues the study of criminology is always in reference to men, in reference to a male's rationality, motivation, alienation and his victim who is always male. The disqualification of women from the criminological field is evident in criminological text as it is assumed, the man can speak for her. In criminology, just as in society man is the centre of the universe and women are merely their complement Research methods have been gendered (Oakley 1997; 1998), with quantitative methods traditionally being associated with words such as positivism, scientific, objectivity, statistics and masculinity, while qualitative methods have generally been associated with interpretivism, non-scientific, subjectivity and femininity. These associations have led some feminist researchers to criticise or even reject the quantitative approach, arguing that it is in direct conflict with the aims of feminist research, though others have argued that this rejection is merely because those feminist writers did not like the results of the quantitative analysis. It has been argued that qualitative methods are more appropriate for feminist research by allowing subjective knowledge and a more equal relationship between the researcher and the researched (Westmarland: 2001). As official records, the statistics generated by crime reporting show that fewer women commit crimes, and far fewer women are victims of crime, but there has been little research to explain this difference. One explanation for this omission might be that because women commit fewer crimes, they are less of a problem so an examination of their criminality is either inherently less interesting or less relevant to developing an understanding of how to control the men. But the explanation is more likely concerned with male stereotypes. Victorian America viewed women in accordance with inflexible ideals of femininity, and the male-dominated criminal courts were inhibited by notions of chivalry when required to apply justice to women whom cultural norms had determined to be "pure, passive and dependent", and whom, leading experts claimed, seldom committed crimes. Later, Otto Pollak (1950) claimed that men are socialised to treat women in a fatherly and protective manner. Female offenders were like their mothers and wives, and the male judiciary could not imagine them behaving in a criminal way. Women were the instigators rather than the perpetrators of crime. This greater capacity for deceit arose from the 'passive' role which, according to Pollack, they have to assume during sexual intercourse. Less flatteringly, The Criminality of Women also claimed that women prefer professions like maids, nurses, teachers, and homemakers so that they can engage in undetectable crime. He also thought women were especially subject to certain mental diseases like kleptomania and nymphomania. The most investigated "difference" between the sexes was biological. Cesare Lombroso (1903) identified the female physiognomy thought most likely to determine criminal propensity. While he credited criminal women as being stronger than men, the consequence was that prison would hardly affect them at all. Lombroso concluded true female criminals were rare and showed few signs of degeneration because they had "evolved less than men due to the inactive nature of their lives". Lombroso argued it was the females' natural passivity that withheld them from breaking the law, as they lacked the intelligence and initiative to become criminal. William I. Thomas (1907) published Sex and Society in which he argued that men and women possessed essentially different personality traits. Men were more criminal because of their biologically determined active natures. Women were more passive and less criminally capable. In The Unadjusted Girl (1923) he argued that as women have a greater capacity to love than men they suffer more when they do not receive social approval and affection. The "unadjusted girls" are those who use their sexuality in a socially unacceptable way to get what they want from life. The female criminal forgoes the conventional rewards of domesticity by refusing to accept prevailing modes of sexuality and seeks excitement, wealth, and luxury: a pursuit that may conflict with the interests of the social group as it also exercises the freedom to pursue similar goals. Strain Theories are criticised by feminists as betraying a double standard. When male offenders commit a crime under certain conditions of opportunity blockage, their commission of crime is somehow seen as a "normal" or functional response. When women commit crime, Strain Theory views it as some sort of "weakness". Naffine (1987) probably represents the best example of this critique, but there are other critiques like Albert K. Cohen, and Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin. The research methodology in Social Learning Theories, such as Edwin Sutherland's Differential Association Theory, is criticised for relying on male examples, using case studies of males only, and being a male-dominated perspective that glamorises the male criminal, or at least the sociable, gregarious, active, and athletic characteristics of the male criminal. Similarly, Social Control Theories, such as Hirschi's Social Bond Theory, focuses almost exclusively on social class at the expense of gender and race. Feminists therefore concluded that the failure of criminology to research the issue of female criminality fairly either reflected a male-dominated discourse in which men primarily research male issues, or betrayed the rigidity of male stereotypes which allowed men to justify their prejudices with pseudoscience. Adler (1975) proposed that the emancipation of women during the 1970s increased economic opportunities for women and allowed women to be as crime-prone as men. While "women have demanded equal opportunity in the fields of legitimate endeavours, a similar number of determined women have forced their way into the world of major crime such as white-collar crime, murder, and robbery" (Adler, 1975: 3). She suggested that as women are climbing up the corporate business ladder, they are making use of their 'vocational liberation' to pursue careers in white-collar crime. But feminism has made female crime more visible through increased reporting, policing and the sentencing of female offenders and, even then, the statistical base is small in comparison to men. Carlen (1985) argues that Adler's 'new female criminal' is cast as the 'biological female' who is essentially masculine. The 'new female' criminal turns out to be the 'old maladjusted masculinist female' of traditional criminology, rejecting her proper feminine role such as institutionalising rather than incarcerating women who commit 'male' offences such as robbery, i.e. Adler's 'sisters in crime' appears to work within the frameworks of traditional criminology rather than a feminist one. A debate in the recent criminology literature has focused on the handling of female offenders as they are processed through the criminal justice system. There are two competing perspectives. The chivalry or paternalism hypothesis which echoes the perception of female inmates as victims, argues that women are treated more leniently than men at various stages of the male-dominated justice process as a function of the male desire to protect the weaker (Crew: 1991; Erez, 1992). The "evil women" hypothesis which parallels the female inmate as subhuman perspective, holds that women often receive harsher treatment than men in the criminal justice system and suggests that this different treatment results from the notion that criminal women have violated not only legal boundaries but also gender role expectations (Chesney-Lind, 1984; Erez, 1992). Farrington and Morris (1983) found some empirical evidence that women did receive less severe punishments, but female offenders are far more likely to be first-time offenders, and to have committed a less serious form of the relevant offence; they stole smaller or fewer items, used less violence, and so on. It is possible to conclude that female offenders are not being treated any differently from males in equivalent circumstances. However, the evidence does suggest that married women with a caring role are more likely to be treated leniently. This may be because they are expected to remain in the home to continue their dependent "maternal" function. Unmarried women or those in unconventional relationships tended to receive more harsh treatment, confirming a sentencing model based a cultural need to reinforce gender roles within a framework of heterosexual marriage or family life. Chapman (1980) studied the connection between labour force participation, and revealed an increase in female criminal activity during times of economic hardship. The smallest increases in arrests coincided with periods of the greatest increase in economic activity with the most common offence being that of shop lifting. When times are good, the offending woman appears to stabilise rather than escalate. An absence rather than availability of employment opportunities (liberation thesis) would seem a more plausible explanation for increases in female crime. Naffine (1987: 99) believes the criminal woman's motive appears more rational and straight forward than manifesting her gender-role concerns or seeking to compete with the criminal male. Criminology texts usually does not cover the broad possibilities that may account for female criminality. A criticism of criminological explanations of female crime is its insistence on presuming the nature of females and their predisposition away from crime. This determinate model of female criminality, Smart (1976:176) argues assumes an "inherent and natural distinction exists between the temperament, ability and conditionability of men and women". Further explained, females have a milder temperament, have a lesser ability to commit crime and are more easily conditioned towards abiding the law. Smart argues that the differences that exist between males and females are of little importance in the study of crime as the factors that cause crime are "culturally determinate rather than a reflection of the natural qualities of the sexes" (1976:176). Feminists have levelled complaints at this angle of criminology that assumes females are controlled by their biology and are incapable of thinking for themselves, feminist point out that while criminological thinking has surpassed the gloomy days of biological determinism and the predetermined actor model of crime, criminological explanations of female crime has not. Field (1990) usefully differentiated between crime for gain (primarily property crime) and crime not for gain (assault and sexual offences). The commission of directly economically beneficial crimes, together with prostitution - a clear example of deviance as work - might be subjected to both a gender and rationality test. Two authors writing about women sex workers have recently advocated a 'presumption of wilful rationality' (Scrambler and Scrambler 1997: xv) to capture the idea that the background of prostitutes cannot be denied as unimportant when considering recruitment into the sex industry but the idea of free and informed choice might be important too. Such an approach recognizes 'doing crime' is one's own free will and choice (willful), however, at the same time it can be regarded as exercising one's reason (rationality). The notion of 'willful rationality' might be appropriate for considering other forms of crime for gain that women 'do'. It might also be considered alongside Carlen's 'optional', 'incidental' and 'professional law breaking' categories (Carlen, 1988). The motivation and vocabularies used by women in particular might offer us new insights and understandings of the nature, trends and female offending patterns of the 1990's. The pull towards criminal activity felt by women who are engaged in economic crimes and who are acting rationally, is an area which deserves further empirical and theoretical attention. Black feminist thought which consists of ideas produced by Black women clarify a standpoint of and for Black women. It is assumed that Black women possess a unique standpoint on, and experiences of, historical and material conditions (Lorde, 1984; Hill-Collins, 2002). It is further claimed that Black women's experiences uniquely provide an 'outsider-within' perspective on self, family and society which in turn serves to establish a distinctive standpoint vis a vis sociology's paradigmatic facts and theories. It is also important to acknowledge the notion of 'global' feminisms and recognise similarities and differences between feminisms in the West, East, North and South, and the differential attention given to class, racial, ethnic and imperial tensions in different economic, technological, sexual, reproductive, ecological and political contexts (Bulbeck, 1998; Smith, 2000). The agenda for feminist criminology is to demonstrate to the more traditional members of the discipline that the conventional view of women is inaccurate. Women are to be observed behaving in ways that do not fit the theories. It tends to be the theories not the women that have been found to be deficient. Such discoveries do much to contradict the idea of the passive and compliant female contained in many standard accounts of crime. For example, the complex hypothesis that white-collar female crime is expanding because of improved occupational opportunities for women is undermined by crime statistics which show that women are still principally shop-lifters. Many women appear to be encouraged to fear men and to circumscribe their public behaviour. The customary association of men with the use of force and power is not confined to the criminal population. Female vulnerability is often invoked to strengthen both the senses of male power and the need for its considered use, that is, to protect women. Women are forced to commit offences as a result of impoverished and oppressed conditions due to unemployment, a lack of educational opportunities, domestic violence, and divorce or separation. This may explain the apparent increase in petty theft, robbery and homicide References 1. Allen, H. (1987) Justice Unbalanced Gender, Psychiatry and Judicial Decisions. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. 2. Auld, J., Dorn, N. and South, N. (1986) 'Irregular Work, Irregular Pleasures: Heroin in the 1980's', in R. Matthews and J, Young (eds.), Confronting Crime. London: Sage. 3. Bawly, D. (1982) The Subterranean Economy. New York: McGraw Hill. 4. Beneria, L. and Feldman, S. (eds.) (1992) Unequal Burden. Economic Crises, Persistent Poverty, and Women's Work. Oxford: Westview Press. 5. Bennett, T. and Wright, R. (1984) Burglars on Burglary: Prevention and the Offender. Aldershot: Gower. 6. Block, A. and Chambliss, W.J. (1981) Organizing Crime. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Read More