Gender And Crime In Canada

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Personally, my perceptions on the relationship between gender and crime are greatly influenced by the media as well as a previous Youth, Crime and Justice course I took in university. When watching these shows, I notice that most of the individuals who are involved with crime tend to be male. In addition, even if a female is involved, the police treat them significantly better. For example, the show called the Fosters is one of the only shows that has stood out as having a female main character who is in foster care that is involved with the criminal justice system. Throughout the show, males are also shown in the criminal justice system, however this stood out to me that the main character was female and heavily in and out of the system. Yet, …show more content…

It stated that the risk of violent victimization among adult males is equivalent. This report focuses on the nature and extent of gender differences in police-reported violent victimization in individuals aged 18 years and over. This report uses police-reported data collected through the incident based Uniform Crime Reporting Survey as well as some data from the Homicide Survey. However, this data only reflects crime reported to the police, data goes unreported for various reasons including choosing to deal with the incident another way, feel that the incident was not important enough or because they do not want the police involved. For both men and women, violent victimization rates were highest among 18-24 year olds and lowest among seniors aged 65 and over. Overall, women most often reported being victimized by men regardless of the crime, 81% of males were accused of violent crimes against women and 79% against males whereas females only accounted for 10% of victimizations against men and women. Having said that, there are gender differences between the types of violence offenses experienced by males and females. For example, victims of physical assaults reported to police were more likely to be men. Females are more likely to be victims of common assault whereas males were more likely to be victims of more serious …show more content…

After reading these statistics, it has helped me to realize and further my own beliefs on gender differences in crime as well as the biases I have developed through watching television. I was interested to learn that the crime rates between male and females are equal. My perception was that males have an increased rate of criminal activity because of how the media portrays males in movies and television shows. Evidently, the overall crime rates are the same but the type of crime that occurs differs depending on an individual’s gender. According to the national report, my beliefs about women being more likely to be killed or assaulted by a spouse are true. The national report states that this is accurate and that men are more likely to be assaulted or killed by a stranger or acquaintance. Before reading this article, I knew a large number of criminal offences go underreported due to the stigma or repercussions of reporting depending on the case. In addition, I knew that men are more likely to be involved with gangs and drugs leading to assault and murder whereas females are more likely to be involved with less serious crimes such as prostitution and shoplifting. Overall, my perceptions in the first part may differ from the second section since I was not aware of the statistics and have created beliefs based on media about gender and crime. However, these may also be similar because I

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