THE NEW FEMALE CRIMINAL: REALITY OR MYTH?

Author(s): Carol Smart

Source: The British Journal of Criminology, Vol. 19, No. 1 (January 1979), pp. 50-59
Published by: Oxford University Press
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 BRIT. J. CRIMINOL. Vol.19 No. 1 JANUARY 1979

THE NEW FEMALE CRIMINAL:

REALITY OR MYTH?

Carol Smart {Sheffield.)*

The thesis that there is a relationship between the rate of crime committed
by women and women's emancipation is not new to criminological literature.
Since Lombroso and Ferrero produced their study of female offenders in 1895
criminologists have periodically emphasised the social and moral implica
tions of the trend away from traditional female roles towards more ' ' liberated ' '
conditions. On the one hand it has been argued that wage-earning mothers
create latchkey children who become tomorrow's delinquents and social
misfits, while on the other it has been maintained that women themselves
become more criminally oriented because of their association with
" masculine " values at work and their contact with opportunities for crime
outside the home. Any change in women's social and economic position
which lessens the strict division of labour between the sexes has therefore
been viewed with considerable misgiving, whilst any reinforcement of the
value of women's traditional, domestic role has been perceived as a stand
against further social decline and disorder.
Whether the women's liberation movement is actually causing an increase
in female criminality and giving rise to a new female criminal has rarely been
questioned, however. On the contrary this thesis, in its various forms, has
become so established that it appears to be self-evident and uncontroversial.
One example of this position can be found in the Staff Report submitted to
the U.S. National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence,
where it is stated that "... the ' emancipation ' of females in our society over
recent decades has decreased the differences in delinquency and criminality
between boys and girls, men and women, as cultural differences between them
have narrowed " (Mulvihill et al., 1969, p. 425). In this statement the causal
relationship between an apparent emancipation of women and changes in
criminal behaviour is not treated as problematic ; it stands merely as a state
ment of the obvious. Similar assumptions are to be found in discussions of
female criminality in the United Kingdom. For example, Hart has claimed
that "... perhaps some of the problem is to do with uni-sex, the seeking by
the girl for equality with the man, in every way, including violence. ... No
longer can you appeal to the girls, as in the past, on grounds of femininity, or
of being feminine—that has no meaning at all. ..." (Hart, 1975, p. 7). It is
therefore generally accepted that women's emancipation causes an increase in
female crime and that women are in fact becoming more like men where crime
is concerned, even though very little research has been carried out on this
topic.
One of the few studies of this area is Adler's work, Sisters in Crime : The Rise
of the New Female Criminal. Adler accepts the thesis that liberation increases
* Research Fellow, Faculty of Law, University of Sheffield.
The paper was accepted in May 1978.
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 THE NEW FEMALE CRIMINAL: REALITY OR MYTH?

female criminality; indeed female criminality is treated as an indication of

the degree of liberation achieved by women. For Adler liberation in con
ventional areas is simply mirrored in illegal enterprises ; she states : " The
movement for full equality has a darker side which has been slighted even by
the scientific community. ... In the same way that women are demanding
equal opportunity in fields of legitimate endeavor, a similar number of
determined women are forcing their way into the world of major crimes "
(Adler, 1975, p. 13). It is not entirely clear in Adler's work, however,
whether she claims that the women's movement is inducing previously law
abiding women and girls to commit crimes because they are emulating men
and that, implicitly, crime is some kind of epitome of male endeavour, or
whether existing female " criminals " are turning to new, more masculine
forms of crime such as robbery, burglary and organised crime. But more
crucial to a critique of Adler is the fact that her entire thesis is based on a very
scant observation of F.B.I. Uniform Crime figures between i960 and 1972.
She notes, for example, that between i960 and 1972 there has been an
increase of 277 per cent, in women arrested for robbery in the U.S.A. (for
men it was an increase of 169 per cent.), while larceny increased by 303 per
cent, for women (82 per cent, for men) and burglary increased by 168 per
cent, for women (63 per cent, for men) and so on. She argues that these
percentage increases reveal that female crime is increasing at a much faster
rate than male crime. Similarly Adler outlines the statistical evidence relating
to juvenile offenders and concludes not only that female juvenile delinquency
is accelerating at a faster rate than male but also that the statistics are an
indication of future patterns of adult female criminality.
There are two very elementary fallacies in these propositions, however;
first, the comparison between two sets of percentage increases can be entirely
misleading and, secondly, the assumption that the juvenile delinquency of
today sets the pattern of adult crime for tomorrow is quite unwarranted. It is
well known that juvenile delinquency and adult crime are quite different
phenomena, involving largely different personnel, different motivations and
different purposes. Yet on the basis of these two propositions Adler predicts
dramatic increases in crime, particularly violent crime, by women. Further
more Adler extends her analysis and prediction beyond the United States to
Western Europe, New Zealand and even India. Ignoring cultural variations,
different criminal codes and legal systems, different methods of collating
statistics and different degrees of " emancipation " for women, she posits a
universality to the thesis of the causal relationship between liberation and
crime.
It is of course not unusual that a monocausal explanation of female
criminality should be advanced, and the women's movement serves in this
context as a convenient account for explaining what is actually a complex
social phenomenon. In the past criminologists have proffered various explana
tions based on biological premises. Included amongst these has been the
idea that the female offender is biologically abnormal, having too many male
characteristics (Lombroso and Ferrero, 1895; Cowie etal., 1968), or the thesis
that female criminality can be explained by an hormonal imbalance caused
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 CAROL SMART

physiologically. Most of the explanations of female criminality have been

essentially monocausal. Unlike the studies of male criminality which have
moved on from the crude biologism of Lombroso to consider such factors as
socio-economic class, subcultural membership, the effects of labelling and the
actual constitution of our criminal laws, the few engaged in the study of
female criminality still appear to be searching for one simple cause, in this
case the women's movement.
In order to assess the proposition that there is a relationship between
women's liberation and increases in female criminality there are two
questions that need to be asked. First, what changes, if any, are occurring in
the criminal behaviour of women and girls ? and, secondly, what relationship
exists between socio-economic and political changes in the position, status and
role of women and girls and a participation in crime ? In dealing with the
first question we need to look initially at official criminal statistics. Now it is
well known that these official records are not a true representation of
criminal behaviour; there are many omissions, an over-emphasis on certain
types of offences and an under-representation of white-collar crime. In
addition there are the influences of modifications in policing and prosecution
policies and the effects of moral panics on particular crime rate figures.
Indeed official statistics may tell us more about the law and its enforcement
than about those people who come to be defined as offenders.
Yet in the current analyses of women's involvement in crime, official
statistics have been crucial in building the case that female crime is on the
increase, particularly violent crime, and that this has something to do with
women's liberation. But official statistics do not speak for themselves; they
require interpretation, and it is this interpretation that calls for examination.
Most contemporary commentators on female criminality have restricted
their observations to the last one or two decades. This is primarily because
both in the United States and the United Kingdom the 1960s are perceived
as crucial to the changing social position of women as it was during this

Table i

Indictable offences, all courts : Women found guilty

Offence 1965 1970 1975

♦Class I—offences
against the person 857 1,338 2,785
Class II—offences
against property
with violence 1,073 2,022 2,677
Class III—offences
against property
without violence 28,262 37,437 46,910
Total of all indictable
offences 31,011 42,681 60,356
Source: HMSO, Criminal Statistics, England and Wales.

* These classifications were modified in 1973. Class I has been divided into two groups, violence
against the person and sexual offences, Class II is now burglary and robbery, two separate categories,
and Class III is now theft and handling stolen goods (fraud is now included with forgery). For the
purpose of this paper and to facilitate comparison across the years the old classifications are used.
Totals include all indictable offences, not just those in classes I, II and III.
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 THE NEW FEMALE CRIMINAL: REALITY OR MYTH?

period that the women's movement was revived. Official statistics for England
and Wales show the following picture of women found guilty of indictable
offences in all courts for the years 1965, 1970 and 1975 (see Table 1).
The total of all indictable offences by women has virtually doubled in the
ten years from 1965 to 1975 and the greatest proportionate increase has been
in violent offences against the person. Indeed between 1965 and 1975 there
has been an increase of 225 per cent, in the numbers of women committing
these offences, while offences against property with violence have increased
by 149 per cent, and offences against property without violence by 66 per
cent. This compares somewhat alarmingly with the proportionate increase in
indictable offences committed by males over the same period (see Table 2).

Table 2

Proportionate increases in indictable offences by males and females between 1965 and 1975
Offence Male Female
V
/o °/
/o

Glass I 100 225

Class II 55 149
Class III 46 66
Grand total
of all indictable offences 83 95

Source : HMSO, Criminal Statistics, England and Wales

Table 2 indicates that it is particularly in the area of violence that female

crime is increasing at a faster rate than male crime. But it is precisely with
this type of interpretation that great care must be exercised. A 100 per cent,
increase in anything sounds immense, when it is attached to crime it may
appear horrifying, yet the absolute figures may be quite small. (For example,
between 1965 and 1975 there has been an increase of 500 per cent, in murder
by women; the absolute figure for 1965 was one and for 1975 it was five). It is
also particularly misleading to compare proportionate increases in female
crime with those in male crime because the absolute figures for the former are
typically so small that an insignificant change distorts the percentage increase,
while for the latter the figures are so large that massive changes are required
before the percentage increase changes noticeably.
It is also quite misleading to present percentage increases in crimes for one
decade only. This practice, by omission, implies that previous increases are
less significant or even less rapid. This tends to collude with an ahistorical
perspective which almost always treats crime as a contemporary problem and
rarely as a recurring or even constant feature of social life. It is indeed
astounding to find Lombroso in the 1890s, W. I. Thomas in the 1920s,
Pollak in the 1950s and Adler in the 1970s all discussing a new social problem,
namely the increase in female crime. A comparison with statistics from
previous decades is therefore instructive (see Table 3).
Table 3 indicates that dramatic rises in female criminality are not a new
phenomenon. Between 1935 and 1946 there was an increase of 365 per cent,
in crimes against property with violence, while for the same period larceny
increased by 68 per cent. This latter figure of 68 per cent, relates very closely
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 CAROL SMART

Table 3
Indictable offences: Persons found guilty—% increases and decreases over four decades
Offence 1935-46 1946-55 '955-65 '965-75
M F M F M F M F
Q O
/ C
»/ / 0/
/ 0 / O /0

Class I
Class II
70 94 108 V)3°* I02 III 100 225
'99 365 74 97 176 129 55 149
Class III 32 68 (—)°*7 (—)5 84 127 46 66
Grand Total
of all indictable offences 46 68 '4 (—)1 * 5 103 121 83 95

Source: HMSO, Criminal Statistics, England and Wales.

* (—) indicates a percentage decrease. All other figures represent a percentage increase.

to the 66 per cent, increase in theft by women in the period 1965 to 1975.
Remarkably, though, the increase in larceny by women between 1955 and
1965 is higher than either of these two figures; in fact the percentage increase
between 1955 and 1965 was 127 per cent. These figures and others in Table 3
indicate that there has not been a unilateral increase in female offences in
general but that, on the contrary, there have been considerable fluctuations
since the start of the Second World War. The period immediately following
the war (1946 to 1955) is notable in that it shows a decrease in many
offences by women and a total decrease of 1 • 5 per cent, over all indictable
offences. During this period there was, however, only a slight increase (14 per
cent.) in the total of indictable offences by men. It would seem therefore that
the early 1950s were a relatively "law-abiding" period for both men and
women (or a particularly inefficient time for agencies of law enforcement).
Interestingly, though, the totals of indictable offences for men and women
between 1935 and 1946, 1955 and 1965, and 1965 and 1975, show women
offenders to be increasing at an overall faster rate than men. Yet, with the
exception of the period between 1946 and 1955, the figures for 1965 to 1975,
the years of "emancipation" for women, show a slower percentage increase of
women over men offenders for the whole period since before the Second World
War. So although every decade except 1946 to 1955 shows women offenders
to be increasing more rapidly than men this was much more the case between
1935 and 1946 ; 1955 and 1965, than between 1965 and 1975, the years during
which the women's movement in Britain was revived.
It must be restated, however, that official criminal statistics, and particu
larly grand totals of indictable offences, are very clumsy (if not misleading)
guides to actual criminal behaviour. For example, changes in the law, such
as the Theft Act of 1968 or the Criminal Damage Act of 1971, have led to
considerable modifications to total crime rate statistics. But nonetheless,
given that much of the contemporary concern over current increases in
female criminality is based on statistical evidence, it is useful to point out
that such increases do not appear to be a modern phenomenon. It is also
useful to keep in perspective that only a tiny proportion of all offenders
are female. Table 4 shows the number of males and females found guilty of
indictable offences per 100,000 of the male population and female population
respectively from 1935 to 1975.
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 THE NEW FEMALE CRIMINAL: REALITY OR MYTH?

Table 4
Number of males and females found guilty of indictable offences per 100,000 of the male
and female population respectively

1935 *94° *945 *95° *955 >96° 1965 *97° *975

Male 370 428 512 553 502 747 971 1,423 1,694
Female 47 68 86 76 69 93 149 201 278
Source: HMSO, Criminal Statistics, England and Wales

Moreover, Table 5 shows the extent to which the sex ratio of offenders as a
percentage of all offenders has remained virtually constant. The belief in
wholesale increases in female criminality is therefore not borne out by
official statistics. Indeed the straightforward comparison between proportion
ate increases in male and female offenders can be totally misleading.

Table 5
Percentage of persons found guilty of indictable offences : Distribution by sex

'93° '95° '96o '97° 1975

Male 89-0 86-o 88-o 87-0 85-0
Female II-o 14-0 12-0 13-0 15*0

Source: HMSO, Criminal Statistics, England Wales.

Further evidence on the question of changes and increases in female

criminality can be gleaned from the growing number of self-report studies on
juvenile delinquency. At present most of these are American studies (Wise,
1967; Weis, 1976; Morris, 1965) although there is a growing amount of
information on Britain (Shacklady Smith, 1975; Campbell, 1977). Most of
these studies agree that the official sex ratio for juvenile offences, which is
usually placed at 7:1, is quite inaccurate, and claim a ratio of 2:1 is far more
realistic. However, there are two issues that must be considered here. First,
in what type of offences is there an overlap between boys' and girls'
delinquency ? and, secondly, are these re-evaluations of the sex ratio indicative
of a recent change in delinquent behaviour by girls or are they retrospectively
valid ? The self-report studies indicate that girls commit all offences more than
is generally appreciated, but the same can be said of boys. There is no reason
to assume, without substantial evidence, that girls commit more " hidden "
crimes than boys. The area of largest overlap between the sexes according to
the self-report studies is in status offences; that is, where the activity is
defined as an offence because of the age of the person committing it. Thus
girls engage in entering pubs and drinking under age, gambling and smoking
and using drugs as much as boys do. Interestingly, girls and boys both appear
to engage in under-age sexual intercourse to the same degree although this is
nearly always treated officially as a female misdemeanour. Girls, however,
admit to violence, theft, stealing cars and other typically " masculine " offences
less often than boys. The self-report studies vary on how much overlap exists
where these latter types of offences occur; however, this may be because Wise
and Weis were both looking at middle-class delinquency while Campbell and
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 CAROL SMART

Shacklady Smith fail to include a class dimension in their analyses. But it

could equally be an indication of regional and cultural variation.
Campbell and Shacklady Smith indicate that boys and girls are similar in
terms of the offences they commit, although frequency may vary. Neither of
these studies implies, however, that this is due to recent changes in delinquent
behaviour. On the contrary both authors argue that current distortions in the
official picture of juvenile delinquency reflect traditional attitudes and pre
conceptions of female offenders. In particular Shacklady Smith (and also
McRobbie and Garber, 1976) argue that most female juvenile delinquency
involving property or violence has been ignored by male criminologists,
creating an impression now that it is a new phenomenon, while the sexual
(mis) behaviour of girls has been over-emphasised to such an extent that it has
been traditionally assumed that all female delinquency is sexual in nature.
(See also Chesney-Lind, 1973; Terry, 1970; and Cohn, 1970). There is
therefore no evidence from these studies that " masculine " type juvenile
offences by girls are a new or recent occurrence ; on the contrary there is every
indication that female juvenile delinquency has been " sexualized " because
of prevailing double standards of morality and the desire to protect girls who
are promiscuous (Smart, 1976).
In spite of the doubtful empirical basis for the current belief that female
criminality is changing substantially, it is nonetheless achieving the status of a
legitimate account of contemporary trends. The argument that this is caused
by female emancipation is also gathering credence every time it is uttered,
whether in academic journals or on the media. The emancipation argument
is based on two premises. The first is that trends in female criminality are not
just changing but that they are changing in a way significantly different from
male criminality. Thus it is implied that an explanation dealing exclusively
with women and girls is required rather than more general explanations that
might be appropriate to either sex [e.g. changing social conditions, unemploy
ment, law enforcement practices, or the influence of the media). The second
premise is that increased legitimate opportunities, particularly those provided
by leaving a traditional domestic role and going out to work, make way for
increased illegitimate opportunities for women.
Now there are problems with both of these premises. The first premise
assumes that official statistics and impressionistic media accounts of in
creasing female criminality are an unproblematic representation of reality.
The limitations of this premise have already been outlined. The second
premise, namely that female emancipation is epitomised by better occupa
tional opportunities for women, is equally unacceptable. The women's
movement is not solely, or even primarily, concerned with equal oppor
tunities at work or with encouraging women to adopt typically masculine
work rules. It is therefore entirely misleading to conceptualise the women's
movement solely in terms of a body responsible for improving wage-earning
opportunities for women. But as this is the predominant view of the move
ment we need to discover to what extent occupational opportunities for
women have improved and how this might provide further opportunity for
crime.

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 THE NEW FEMALE CRIMINAL: REALITY OR MYTH?

Improvements in the labour market have so far affected mainly middle

class women; certain professions such as teaching and social work have a high
number of women members, although they are rarely in the top grades. There
has also been an expansion in clerical work over the past two decades which
has mainly affected women. But as these developments are restricted to
professional and white-collar work any consequent increases in illegitimate
opportunities would presumably involve only white-collar crime rather than
violence, burglary or robbery or other forms of non-white-collar criminal
behaviour. It is therefore difficult to comprehend how contact with the labour
market, for these women at least, can give rise to increases in crimes of
violence or visible forms of larceny. If, however, this argument applies only
to women who do manual work, then the assumption that legitimate occu
pational opportunities are improving becomes more controversial and the
belief that such women are new to wage-labour is misguided. Indeed working
class women have always worked outside the home; this is not an
achievement of a relatively recent women's movement. As Konopka has
argued. " The major point is that ' working women ' are not the product of
the emancipation movement at all, that occupations outside the home are
nothing new to the laborer" (Konopka, 1966, p. 72).
In fact there is evidence that indicates a worsening occupational position
for all women, but most especially working-class or coloured women. This is
caused by the establishment of a dual labour market (Barron and Norris,
1977 ; Noblit and Burcart, 1976) in which certain people, because of their
sexual, racial and class status, are confined to low-paid, routine, insecure, and
unrewarding work or even to long spells of unemployment as a reserve army
of labour that is superfluous in a declining economy. Rather than the picture
of increased opportunities for all women, therefore, it may be more realistic
to consider the effect of redundancy, unemployment or unfulfilling, low-paid
work on women and girls. We need therefore to study these phenomena and
particularly their impact on working-class girls (who are most vulnerable to
arrest and police or social work intervention as well as to economic depressions)
rather than the more diffuse influence of the women's movement, because
such factors as unemployment or low pay are likely to have a more immediate
influence on their lives. What impact the women's movement may have on
female behaviour is unclear and is unlikely to be direct. Perceptions of the
movement may be distorted by the media and will be differentially received
according to class, race and religious factors. Moreover there is no evidence
available yet to indicate whether girls who become officially defined as de
linquent or women who are defined as criminal, accept, reject or are indiffer
ent to the values of women's liberation.
The question of the influence of the women's movement on the behaviour
of women in general must therefore still be treated as problematic. However,
the existence of such a movement will not only affect the women to whom it is
directed but will also influence the consciousness and perceptions of the
police, social workers, magistrates, judges and others, who may well interpret
female behaviour in the light of the belief that women are becoming more
"liberated". As Shacklady Smith argues:
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 CAROL SMART

" Since deviant definitions are inevitably related to the social

position of the group concerned, it follows that any real or per
ceived change in the economic and political position of women
may lead to a redefinition of female criminality by the state and
the media. It could well be argued that the recent increase in
officially recorded violence among girls suggests that a change in
definition rather than in behaviourse has already taken place."
(Shacklady Smith, 1975, p. 10).
The women's movement does not therefore affect only the consciousness and
behaviour of women, but also the perceptions of women by significant
defining agencies such as the police and the courts.
The current attempt to explain apparent changes and increases in female
criminality in relation to the women's movement reveals a confused and
simplistic understanding of the process of emancipation, its influence on
consciousness and social institutions, and its location within and alongside
other social and historical developments. It ignores that the movement itself
is an outcome of social processes and forces which may themselves be more
directly related to changes in criminal behaviour than a social movement
intent on improving the position of women in society. Such explanations
merely serve the purpose of strengthening reactionary forces that would deny
women the right to overcome their subordinate, second-class status by
arguing, implicitly and explicitly, that female emancipation produces a
breakdown in the social order and gives rise to new dimensions of criminal
behaviour.

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