One of the key issues when dealing with research surrounding female criminality is the reality that research on female criminality is severely lacking in comparison to the volumes of research dedicated to male criminality. Whether researching theft, assaults, sex offenses, and even domestic violence; the research overwhelmingly focuses on male perpetrators and leaves women out of the research almost entirely. Society, it would appear, seems to believe women incapable of being aggressors or perpetrators to such a filthy thing as criminal activity. However, by ignoring women’s capability of aggression and criminal behavior, society is doing a gross disservice to the victims of female-perpetrated crime. Sex offenses, in particular, have had a …show more content…
This belief has various problems with the message it sends to victims and perpetrators. By believing the idea that women cannot rape society sends the message that victims of female-perpetrated sexual assaults are not ‘real’ victims and because there are no ‘real’ victims the women that offend are also not considered ‘real’ offenders. Society then further minimizes the damage done by women offenders, and hence further reinforces the belief that women cannot be violent. When it comes to lack of research, one can tell an immediate difference in the way that male and female sex offenders are classified. There are numerous classifications for both male rapists and male child sex offenders, yet there are only a few classifications for females at all. That alone speaks for how little research has attempted to understand the motivations for female offenders as well as their characteristics. One of the most cited source for sex offender typologies comes from Robertiello and Terry’s (2007) classification system. In their system, they break down general (male) rapist typologies into compensatory, sadistic, power/control, and opportunistic (Robertiello & Terry, …show more content…
The classification for child molesters are fixed offenders, regressed offenders, situational offenders (which include regressed, morally indiscriminate, sexually indiscriminate, and inadequate), as well as preferential offenders (which include seductive, fixated, and sadistic). Compared to all thirteen different classifications for male sex offenders, there are only a few female sex offender classifications: teacher/lover, male coerced, exploration-exploitation, psychologically disturbed, and predisposed (West & Friedman, 2011). Besides the sheer difference in numbers, another issue with the typology differences between male and female offenders is the language used to classify them. Take for example, male child molesters: morally indiscriminate, sexually indiscriminate, and sadistic – all of these classifications sound criminal or in some way offensive to think about in regard to abusing children. Now compare it to teacher/lover, male-coerced, and exploration-exploitation. The male-coerced typology involves a passive woman who abuses due to an abusive male partner or a male-female couple who both equally abuse (West & Friedman,
This essay will explore reasons why females such as Vanessa George turn to the crime of sex offending. Demonstrating my knowledge and understanding of classical criminological theory, exploring biological theories such as penis envy and more contemporary views such as liberation theory within feminism. The essay will then go on to look at the inequalities female sex offenders face within the criminal justice system in comparison with males, using chivalry theory and evil woman theory to explain this.
Perception is not reality. The common assumption that the court system often treats female sex offenders differently than male sex offenders, the punishments of female sex offenders are more lenient than men who commit the same types of crimes, and the differences between male and female victims are all perception and not reality. Objective considerations to additional factors make the perceptions baseless. These additional factors solidify the factual differences between male and female sex offenders.
So as you can see here there are many different ideas of why men become sex offenders. I think that they are all very valid, but I found the second book a lot easier to understand and I found that the reasoning behind it was a lot better because you had several situations where you could put a sex crime to a person and see what had gone wrong in the persons life that may have made the offend.
When the criminal justice system was established, one of the goals was to create neutrality and fairness between the sexes. However, during those times, women were not known for behaving in such manners. If a woman did in fact take part in any criminal activities, those crimes would have been blames on an individual that could of not fought for themselves. Even though people might believe that there is no such thing as ‘stereotyping’ in the criminal justice system, it is quite obvious that women are constantly being looked down upon because of their sex. In general, women tend to be treated like fragile objects that could break at any moment; the truth is that women can behave like men. Society stereotypes women; and, the criminal justice system is no different. When it comes to the stereotyping of women in the criminal justice system, society presents women who are indeed capable of committing such crimes as victims because by doing do they can achieve a lesser sentence or if necessary a longer sentence that will protect them from any harm.
Although the years since Smart’s study have seen much more interest in the study of female crime and deviance, many general theories in this area continue to neglect gender as a factor influencing criminality. This is despite the fact that official figures suggest that gender is perhaps the most significant single factor in whether an individual is convicted of crime. Any theories which fail to explain this relationship could therefore be seen as inadequate. OFFICIAL STATISTICS, CRIMINALITY AND GENDER Pollak – the ‘masked’ female offender – ‘chivalry’ thesis Writing in 1950, Otto pollak argued that official statistics on gender and crime were highly misleading.
Chesney-Lind, M. (1986). Women And Crime: The Female Offender. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 12(1), 78.
Since 1970, there has been an increasing and alarming rise 138 percent of violent crimes committed by women. Still, while the equivalent percentage compared to male violence is small 15 percent to 85 percent the fact that the numbers have elevated so drastically points to something changing in society.
The Feminist theory is based around gender inequalities and the concept of an imbalance of power between men and women and within men themselves. This theory argues that male sexual offenders are like normal men, however they have been conditioned within society and culture that when their masculinity is questioned, this creates a reaction where males sexually assault females to boost their male status within society. The feminist theory highlights how women’s experiences are often based around the struggle of male domination or patriarchy (Moore, 2008, p. 5) in relation to sexual offences. This article links closely with the Feminist Theory as
Rape is an issue that usually occurs to females and is more likely executed by males than females. Nonetheless, a female’s position in rape can and does go further than being the victim. Considering that women can be the perpetrator in this sexual assault, who are their victims? Rape can occur to anyone by anyone. In the same way a female can be a victim of rape, so can a male. According to RAINN, an anti-sexual assault organization, “About 3% of American men have experienced attempted or completed rape as of 1998, an estimated 4.5 million as of 2010” (Who Are the Victims?). However, men are not necessarily the victims of solely female-on-male rape. In fact, the majority of males who are raped are the victims of male-on-male rape and
Sex offenders have been a serious problem for our legal system at all levels, not to mention those who have been their victims. There are 43,000 inmates in prison for sexual offenses while each year in this country over 510,000 children are sexually assaulted(Oakes 99). The latter statistic, in its context, does not convey the severity of the situation. Each year 510,000 children have their childhood's destroyed, possibly on more than one occasion, and are faced with dealing with the assault for the rest of their lives. Sadly, many of those assaults are perpetrated by people who have already been through the correctional system only to victimize again. Sex offenders, as a class of criminals, are nine times more likely to repeat their crimes(Oakes 99). This presents a
A study produced by Terranova & Vandiver (2014) targeted the differences between female and male offenders and how their crimes differed from one another. This study attempted to view the most common crime for each of the two sexes along with if these offenders were more likely to offend alone or with another person or group. Crimes that have a female offender present were more likely to not only have at least one female victim, but was also found more likely to have multiple victims overall (Terranova & Vandiver, 2014). Researchers Terranova & Vandiver (2014) also made future victim predictions based on this study. It was hypothesized that as the gap between male and female offenders diminishes, consequently the number of female victims of violent crime will ultimately continue to rise (Terranova & Vandiver, 2014).
Some believe that media is sending out a message that it is okay to be violent towards women and other men because that is what the male gender’s role is. As the Feminist’s Perspective on Rape says that rape is by an, “Anger and the desire for dominance and control; on this view, the rapist is a violent criminal like other violent criminals, not just a guy seeking sex a bit too vigorously.” (Whisnant) This quote explains why people are confused about why men rape, uneducated people believe that men rape because they were lead on to believe that they were going to have sex at the end of the night or date and that the date was “asking” for it. In reality there are several kinds of rapists for example, disadvantaged men, which is the type of rapist that is motivated by rape, specialized rapists, a rapist that is aroused but sexual violence and rape, and the opportunistic rapist, which is the classic date rape situation, meaning the attacker thought they were going to have sex and when they are turned down, decide to use power and control to get what they believe they
Rapist are product of “defective urban cultures that espouse perverse ideals of masculinity” This idea of men having to be stronger than women has been seen through many cultures. Sexual violence is seen as one of the ways in which working class men demonstrate masculinity. There is also a link between alcohol and sexual violence against women which is a big problem in urban areas. In the modern day there has been an entry of women into the labor market. The idea that women were just here to have kids and take care of them no longer existed. Men had to change that thought of them being the only provider of the house. This brought the feeling of men being superior. Men having to show that they are more dominant. This happened in many ways and one was through sexual
This article examines the effect of gender on crime in violent offenses. In the article, authors attempt to identify the cause of change in the difference between the amount of criminal offenses made by females and males, also known as gender gap. The authors used data from a variety of sources including the Uniform Crime Report (UCR), the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), and the Nation Crime Survey (NCS) to research gender differences in violent offenses. “The NCS and NCVS ask respondents about whether specific behaviors have occurred, and typically the responses are used by researchers to code incidents using the official definitions of violent crimes in the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) UCR” (Lauritsen, Heimer, and Lynch 366).
However, experts have revealed that girls using violence, or associating with violent peer groups, were at an added risk of sexual violence including rape as retaliation, multiple perpetrator rape and sexual exploitation (Weller, 2010). This is due to the specific ways in which sexual violence was used. The girls who query the gender regime (Connell, 1987) are also at a greater risk of sexual violence, as a form of punishment, including the girls who end friendships or relationships with the offending group. Women as Property After looking at the link between young women’s violent offending and their experiences of sexual violence, experts state that women were viewed as ‘property’ or ‘objects’ for male use (Weller, 2010). Offenders operated within a gender regime (Connell 1987) which was based on control and ended in young women being utilised to meet male demands (Weller, 2010).