The Gender Gap In Criminology

One of the most persistent and influential conclusion that was drawn in the field of Criminology is that men commit crimes at higher rates than women. While this statement represents one of the least disputed facts among criminal discoveries, it became now a central and much-debated issue among researchers. These statistical differences, known as the gender gap, were explained by a consistent number of researchers in the last century.

One particular aspect in the gender gap in offending that captivated significant attention from both the researchers and the media was the fact that the gender gap has narrowed among time. It became an axiom in Criminology that men commit more crime than women, yet criminologists have not unveiled concrete reasons for the gender ratio of delinquencies. However, research on the narrowing of the gender gap in offending proposed over time three explanations which are valid today. This essay will be focusing on discussing and comparing those assumptions, as well as presenting some of the causes which lead to the male and female deviance. The final part of the paper will critically assess distinct measurement issues

regarding the gender gap problem.
In the mid-1970s, Rita Simon (1975) and Freda Adler (1975) reported in few significant published books that “women’s rates of crime and violence were increasing at a faster rate than men’s offending, which produced some narrowing in the gender gap in offending”. This assumption was later supported by researchers such as Box and Hale (1983) or Steffensmeier (1983) who noticed that it is necessary to appeal to a comparative approach, taking into consideration both female and male rates of crime, to draw a conclusion about any changes in female criminal ratios.
Steffensmeier and Cobb had focused their research on arrests over a period of 40 years, from the 1930s to 1970s, and reported that the gender gap has indeed narrowed, but only for property crimes and not for the violent ones. However, Giordano, Kerbel, and Dudley (1981) reported “reductions in the gender gap in a range of offenses, which included violent offenses such as aggravated and other assault, in a study of arrests in Ohio from 1890 to 1976” (Lauritsen, et al. 2009). More recent studies have examined “annual data on the gender gap in arrests rates from 1960 to the mid-1990s” and have found that a reduction in the gender gap exists for both property and violent crimes (Heimer, 2000; O’Brien, 1999).
Other researchers, such as LaFree (1998) using the UCR arrest data have found important changes in male crimes ratio. He notices that “the ratio of arrests for female to male robberies, burglaries, and auto thefts increased between 1965 and 1992, narrowing the gender gap in these offenses” (Heimer, 2000). Although both the male and female crime numbers in these previous offenses remained high, there could be seen a distancing in the between the genders over the period 1965 to 1992, so a “modest convergence” could be concluded. Another one who examined the UCR was Austin (1982). Based on research done on data between the 1950s to the mid-1970s, he concluded that female numbers increased and became more similar to male’s in arrests for burglary, auto-theft, and robbery, as well as in less serious delinquencies such as fraud, embezzlement or larceny.
The first assumption took into consideration the economic and social independence of women related to men. The study was explained in 1975 by criminologist Freda Adler, who proposed in her book, “Sisters in Crime”, that female criminality rates will be catching up with men’s and the gender gap, will no longer exist. Although, there are still differences in statistics on aggressions, the distinctions between genders have started to contract. One variant of the liberation hypothesis argues that the merging of gender roles has led to a convergence in the gender gap in almost all types of crime, except murder. In other words, as the roles and statuses of women become more similar to the men’s ones, also an increase in the level of female crimes appear. A second explanation of this thesis proposed that women’s increasingly “labour-force participation created new opportunities for crime in the workplace” (Simon, 1975). This is supported by Adler, who notices that “women went for the gold just as men did” (Pearson, 1997).
Contemporary studies are focusing more on the economic marginalization hypothesis, which assumes that the “increased financial hardship of women relative to men has contributed to the narrowing gender gap in crime” (Box 1987, Steffensmeier, 1993).

In other words, this explanation concludes that when women are more economically disadvantaged compared to men, an increase in women’s criminal rate can be seen. This assumption was supported both by the quantitative data collected which have also found a strong relation between crime and poverty rates. Moreover, it was supported by the sociological community who suggests that “there is general agreement among scholars that the economic marginality of women is closely linked to female crime…it is one of the most pervasive explanations for female crime” (Hunnicutt & Broidy,

2004).
A third explanation of the gender gap narrowing is “the decline of chivalry” hypothesis. It proposes that the statistics changes could be a result of the “changing attitudes among law enforcement personnel” (Heimer and Coster, 2001). This scenario suggests that the violent behaviour of males and females hasn’t changed too much, but the reduction of the gap is due to changes of societal definitions of offenses.