Exploring Gender Inequality in Prison Rates

There are a number of factors and theories that determine why women have been imprisoned at a rate more rapidly than men. Factors include the type of offences that have imprisoned women, any prior incarceration and sentence length. The characteristics of women contribute to the factor through the theories that best describe this inequality. These theories are social process, rational choice and neutralization theories. As society continues to evolve, we see women become more independent which can be reflected in the crimes that have been committed. Prior to the 1970s, women were practically undetectable when it came to the reporting of crimes therefore, within contemporary society, we see new crimes being introduced and more women being involved.

The rising rate in crime for women can be described through the neutralization theory, where they live their life day-by-day as a law abiding citizen and engage in behavior deemed as acceptable in society. The techniques used to best describe the theory are denying responsibility, denying harm or injury and denying victim. As mentioned earlier, the most frequent crimes committed by women are the use of illicit drugs, minor theft, intention to cause injury and prostitution. Women at a younger stage in life are sometimes exposed by their parents, siblings or friends to the use of illicit drugs therefore, using their teenage years to experiment growing to believe that it is deemed as acceptable to shift the blame away from themselves (Matz and Skyes). The crime of prostitution committed by women is usually believed to be a career as it is seen as helping the women with income. Denying the responsibility that prostitution is a crime, women will continue working as prostitutes for an income even though they are committing an obvious crime, they look at themselves as good people working to make a wage and a living. Denial of injury or harm with women in minor crime can see a rise in crime rates leading to incarcerated. There is also a high rate of women who participate in the crime of theft (REF). Women see this as taking something to which nobody got hurt or was