Crimes Committed by Women: Excellence in Analyzing Mind & Behavior

CRIMES COMMITTED
BY WOMEN
School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

Excellence in analyzing mind & behavior
REFERENCES
1. Ram, A. (2000). Criminology. Rawat Publications, New Delhi – Chapter 5.
2. Read the notes at the bottom of THIS slide in the presentation
3. Support your answer with examples/ Theories/ research studies
4. Conclude your answer with critical analysis of the concept
(critical analysis = criticize / appreciate ) and does it still stand true in today’s
scenario?

DISCUSSION
NATURE OF CRIMES COMMITTED BY WOMEN IN INDIA

& CASE STUDIES

DISCUSSION
THEORETICAL PERSEPCTIVES ABOUT FEMALE

CRIMINALITY

Twice as many women are in jails and prisons now as there were at the beginning
of the decade. And, twice as many women are working outside the home today as
there were in the nineteen fifties. There is, therefore, an empirical base for the
view that as women follow men into the factories and offices, they will follow
them to jail

Dr. Freda Adler and Dr. Rita Simon are advocates of what has been called
Liberation Theory. The theory states that as women become more fully integrated
into society, as they participate in the same activities, and assume many
previously exclusive male roles, differences in crime participation will vanish, or,
put another way, the new female criminal offender will be indistinguishable from
the male in terms of range and seriousness of offense. The theory predicts an
increase in the frequency and variety of female criminal activity as sexual and
cultural roles become more similar.

Adler’s Masculinization Theory
▪ The book published by the prominent female criminologist Freda Adler - Sister in
Crime: The Rise of a new female criminal- in 1975, has helped to develop the
masculinity theory.
▪ The central theme of the book is that women’s crime had begun to change in both
quantity and quality and that this was due not to an alteration in women’s nature
but rather because of increeasd criminal opportunities for women.

▪ In fact, Adler’s theory of masculinity was the new explanation of the masculinity
complex in the arena of theories which derived from sociology.
▪ It has come from Sigmund Freud's theory of ‘Penis envy’, according to which it is
believed that ‘women revolt because of their subordinate positions to man in society’.
▪ Those women who cannot ‘adjust’ to their absence of and longing for a penis in
culturally prescribed manner of dutiful sexual performance and motherhood, attempt to
acquire symbolic masculinity by aggressively rebelling against their ‘natural’ feminine
roles.
▪ Klein stated that, “She is aggressively rebellious, and her drive to accomplishment is the
expression of her longing for a penis”(Curran and Ranzetti, 2001: 77).
▪ They engage in behavior (conventional and criminal) which they believe signifies
masculinity in order to compensate for their lack of an anatomical sign of maleness.
▪ They deny their female role and femininity and identify with then male role and
masculinity. In short they “attempt to be a man” (Klein, 1973:17)

▪ Among the tradition of masculinity theory, the first was developed by the famous
criminologist Cesare Lombroso, the father of Biological doctrine.
▪ Biologically, crime is mainly a male dominated phenomenon, where male characteristics
are responsible for those crimes (Harrigton and Nee, 2005: 03).
▪ For the internal physio-chemical characteristics, the females are more conservative and
play a neutral role, consequently, committing less crime than males (Lombroso &
Ferraro, 1895).
▪ According to Lombroso (1899), the female offender has a “virile cranium” an
overabundance of body hair, and constitutional anomalies and brain capacity which are
more similar to those of a man than to a non-criminal woman (Weis, 1976:17).
▪ The females who are involved with crime are dominated by male characteristics in their
personality (Harrington and Nee, 2005: 3-4)

▪ Firstly, the theory is sexually- partial and gender biased and secondly, if the
masculine characteristics are the only responsible factor for crime, then why
doesn’t all man commit crime?
▪ Freda Adler in addition to the masculinity theory, argued that, women are
involved in more crime due to the increasing participation of women in social
movements since the 1970s, which changed role of female in family and the
feelings of independence in her work and thought. All these factors promote the
‘masculinization processes of women’ role in society

• The socially-acceptable role for females in society was
established as being submissive and secondary to the
Socially acceptable male
roles
• Females may not stray from the acceptable dictated
behavior that society orders.
• After War World II, the shift of roles changed the

American female station from home to work.
The Independence
• The frustration and disappointment reflected in
of Females
increased female delinquency were the result of women
fighting for their independence.
• The differences in opportunity between female and

male are the result of established roles assigned by
Differences of society
Opportunity
• A female may perform acts of deviance based on those
role assignments

• Increased female independence will foster a corresponding
increase in female criminal aggression and the utilization of
Size and Power means to compensate for a lack of physical prowess
• Differences in male and female are size, strength, aggression and
dominance.
• Female weapons usage can be considered as an equalizer in the

context of leadership determination.
Weapons as • Female weapons of choice reflect those items which are easily
Equalizers available.
• The delinquent females employed what was easily accessible,
selling their bodies, to obtain food, clothing, and shelter.
• The differences in the sexes are reflective in social-role, not

Gender Roles in physical or psychological nature.
Female Criminality • When young females begin to grow and desire independence,
sometimes the only way for them to do so is by deviant means

Application of Adler’s Theory to Typical Female Crimes
Abandonment
Drug offenses Terrorism
of the child
Abuse Shop-lifting Murder
Prostitution Burglary

The mechanisms of Adler’s theory are the following:

(1) Females may not stray from the acceptable dictated behavior that society expects;
(2) As females gained more independence, part of that independence would be evident in
criminal activity;
(3) The independence is acquired by education and expanded opportunities for employment
status;
(4) Adler’s theory maintains that females commit crime based on accessibility
CRITIQUES?

Simon’s Opportunistic Theory
▪ “Opportunity theory” theory of female criminality is developed by Rita J. Simon

(1975) in the book Women and Crime.
▪ She showed that there is no difference between male and female in terms of
morality, the biological characteristics not being relevant for committing crime.
▪ According to the empirical observations of this theory, she argued that historically,
males are more active in crime because of their greater social opportunities,
competences, and networking than females.
▪ In the broader social context, if female opportunity, efficiency and social
communication are increased, then the rate of female criminality increases
accordingly.

▪ Simon logically argued that, ‘when more women get access in labor market as
skilled labor and posses highly specialized position in the job sector they commit
more employment related property crime like men.
▪ Some women take the advantage of these opportunities, just as some men do
before’.
▪ On the other hand, she logically comments that, ‘If women become more skilled
and educated, they will be economically independent in future’.
▪ Consequently, the rate of violent crime of female will be reduced since women
generally commit violent acts against their husbands or inmate partners.
▪ Still, she asserted that women were committing more crimes generally
characterized as masculine, particularly white-collar and occupationally offences
(Curran and Ranzetti: 2001).
▪ When women become more educated and independent they will be more able to
resolve these often volatile situations in other less violent ways.

▪ Additionally, she argued that the decrease in female violent crime was the result of
feminism.
▪ ‘As women feel more liberated physically, emotionally, and legally, and are less
subjected to male power, their frustrations and anger decrease ... [which results] in
a decline in their desire to kill the usual objects of their anger of frustration: their
husbands, lovers, and other men upon whom they are dependent, but insecure
about’ (Simon, 1975:40).
▪ This is where the masculinity theory differs from the opportunity theory.
▪ This point is often missed by researchers who link the two theories together as one,
and labeling them as the liberation or gender equality theory.
▪ Overall, the opportunity theory predicts that increasing opportunities of women
reduce the rates of violent female criminality, but increase the rates of property
female criminality, especially larceny/theft, embezzlement, fraud, and forgery.
▪ Critiques?

ADLER AND SIMON
▪ Two early attempts to address the gender ratio problem were Freda Adler’s (1975)
masculinization hypothesis and Rita Simon’s (1975) emancipation hypothesis, both
of which looked at the effect of the women’s liberation movement (now simply
called the women’s movement) on female offending.
▪ In Adler’s view, as females increasingly adopt “male” roles, they will increasingly
masculinize their attitudes and behavior, and will thus become as crime-prone as
men.
▪ Simon’s view was that increased participation in the workforce affords women
greater opportunities to commit job-related crime, and that there was no reason for
them to first undergo Adler’s masculinization.
▪ Neither hypothesis proved useful in explaining the gender crime ratio because
male/female arrest rates have not varied by more than 5 percentage points over the
past 40 years (Campbell, 2009).

Meda-Chesney Lind’s Marginalization Theory
If Cesare Lombroso is the “father of criminology,” as many texts claim, then Meda
Chesney-Lind is the mother of feminist criminology.
In every way that Lombroso failed his students and the individuals (particularly the
women) he studied, Chesney-Lind excelled. Meda Chesney-Lind’s commitment to
understanding female offending and listening to what the girls and women charged
with crimes say about their own lives, situations, and punishments is apparent in her
numerous publications.

▪ Another interpretation linking women’s liberation to female crime is the economic

marginalization hypothesis.
▪ This perspective argues that both Adler and Simon neglected to pay sufficient attention
to patriarchy and the extent to which males control female labor and sexuality.
▪ Research has suggested that much of female crime is related to economic need, and that
women’s poverty and crime rates have risen together (Hunnicutt & Broidy, 2004).
▪ According to this hypothesis, both the increasing crime and poverty rates are indirectly
related to the women’s movement. Specifically, the woman’s movement has generated
efforts by women to free themselves from the power of men, but by doing so they have
freed men from their traditional roles as providers.
▪ According to this hypothesis, the decline in male respect for women has led to a large
increase in out-of-wedlock births and divorce. These things have led to female-headed
households and the “feminization of poverty,” which has led many women to engage in
economically related crimes such as prostitution, drug sales, and shoplifting to support
themselves (Reckdenwald & Parker, 2008).

▪ Some feminist critics (Daly and Chesney-Lind, 1988) suggest that criminology,
like other social sciences, is androcentric, that is, study of crime and the justice
process is shaped by male experiences and understandings of the social world.
▪ Such studied realities form the core of “general” theories of crime/ deviance
without taking female experience, as crime participant or victim, into account:
[Men] create the world from their own point of view, which then
becomes the truth to be described . . . Power to create the world from
one’s point of view is power in its male form (MacKinnon, 1982:23).

▪ Daly and Chesney-Lind (1988) raise two key questions in relation to

criminological theory.
▪ First, they ask whether theories generated to describe men’s or boys’ of crime can
apply to women and girls (what they call the ‘generalizability problem’).
▪ Secondly, they ask why women commit less crime than men (what they term the
‘gender ratio problem’).
▪ In other words, they express concern about ‘gender ’, the implication being that
theories of crime must be able to take account of both men’s and women’s
(criminal) behavior, and that they must also be able to highlight factors which
operate differently on men and women (Heidonshen & Silvestri: 1995:337).

▪ Proponents of this theory claim that more female participation in the labor force
does not necessarily indicate either more gender equality or improved economic
condition for women (Chesney-Lind, 1997).
▪ To find out the causes of the majority of female criminality it has been seen that
their position is marginalized by less salary, un-respectful occupation and less
secured job.
▪ Generally, they commit less property related crime.
▪ Women are motivated to commit crime as a rational response to poverty and
economic insecurity.
▪ This theory argues that the major causes of female crime are unemployment,
poorly paid employment, inadequate welfare payments, and the increasing number
of female headed households with large number of children (Small, 2000: 76).
▪ The mainstream marginalization theory is strongly related to other two theoretical
trends. These two are-(a) Marxist theory, and (b) Feminist theory.

▪ According to Marxist Smith (1980), in her seminal article “Women, crime and
deviance”, ‘In capitalist social structure, female commit crime as a result of their
socialization process’ (Ahuja, 1996: 114).
▪ The real conditions of the aforementioned causes induce the female gradually toward
a marginalization position and, as a result, females commit more crime for their
economic need.
▪ On the other hand, feminist theorists emphasized on the early childhood experience of
women’s physical and sexual torture and relate this to female criminality.
▪ Chesney-Lind and Sheldon said, ‘the exploitation and torture on female by male
instigates themselves to commit crime and drug addiction’ (Simpson, 2000: 05).
▪ Ogle, Maiyer Katkin and Bernard (1995) support the above logic to develop their
‘homicidal theory’. They showed that homicide has a positive relation with the rate of
repeated victimization (Ahuja: 1996).
▪ Critiques?

Thomas And Otto Pallack’s Paternalism Theory
▪ In 1950, Pollak suggested that crimes committed by women went largely

underreported or hidden.
▪ Pollak alleged that women were particularly skilled at hiding their crimes due to
female biology.
▪ He primarily “put forward a view of women as inherently deceitful and vengeful,
exploiting a flow of helpless victims and aided by men’s besotted chivalry”
(Heidensohn 1985: 119).
▪ He claimed that women learned to hide the pain and discomfort of menstruation
from men and were also able to fake interest in sexual intercourse in a way that
men could not.
▪ He also suggested that domestic role of women gave them the opportunity to hide
crimes such as sexually abusing their children or poisoning relatives.

▪ What we need to extract from his theory in order to tackle the essay question, is his
suggestion that chivalry towards women exists within the criminal justice system.
▪ The chivalry theory argues that historically there have been lower rates of female
criminality because of the more lenient treatment of female offenders by criminal
justice personnel.
▪ According to the chivalry theory, females are more prone to violating the law but
according to the economic standard they treated as less destructive in nature.
▪ Thus, female offences get less importance than male ones in the criminal justice
system.
▪ The chivalry theory, first proposed by Pollak in 1961, hypothesizes that gender
discrimination within the criminal justice system exists.
▪ This theory predicts that men will be treated harsher than women for committing
the same crime.

▪ Farnsworth and Teske (1995) have established three additional sub hypotheses to
the chivalry theory: the typicality hypothesis, the selectivity hypothesis, and the
differential discretion hypothesis.
▪ If a woman deviates from the normal female stereotype of the “non- aggressor”, by
participating in a violent crime, they are more likely to receive a severe sentence
and chivalry is less likely to be included when making a sentencing decision.
▪ This is known as the typicality thesis of the chivalry hypothesis. The female not
only gets punished for committing a violent offense, but for failing to behave as a
woman is expected (Farnworth & Teske, 1995).

▪ Selective chivalry is based on the idea of the female stereotype. Females are seen
to be more fragile, polite, and far more gracious than males, implying that women
are to be held less accountable for their actions because they don’t know how to
properly control their emotions, nor are they able to withstand any severe
punishment.
▪ Farnworth & Teske also suggest that the reason for gender disparity in sentencing
is because judges and prosecuting attorneys view the female offender the way they
would a female relative (1995). Therefore when a woman commits a crime, it is
only “right” that a judge or a prosecuting attorney selectively chooses when to
apply chivalry during criminal proceedings (Farnworth & Teske, 1995)

▪ Differential discretion predicts that chivalry is used disproportionately during the

beginning stages of criminal proceedings. The reason being is that the beginning
stages of a trial are less formal, therefore, depending on the type of offense, the
prosecuting attorney will generally reduce the charges or dismiss the case
(Farnworth & Teske, 1995).
▪ Critiques?
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/48824638.pdf -
The Chivalry Hypothesis & Filicide: Are There Categorical Differences between
Mothers and Fathers who kill their Children? – READ

DISCUSSION
CONTRIBUTING FACTORS TOWARDS

CRIMES COMMITTED BY WOMEN

DISCUSSION
EFFECTS & SOCIETAL REACTION OF

CRIMES COMMITTED BY WOMEN

DISCUSSION
MEASURES TO CONTROL CRIMES COMMITTED BY

WOMEN IN INDIA

DISCUSSION
WHAT ARE THE BURNING ISSUES TO BE TACKLED BY

CRIMINOLOGISTS IN THIS CRIME?

THANK YOU


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CRIMES COMMITTED

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

NATURE OF CRIMES COMMITTED BY WOMEN IN INDIA

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

THEORETICAL PERSEPCTIVES ABOUT FEMALE

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

• After War World II, the shift of roles changed the

• The differences in opportunity between female and

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

• Female weapons usage can be considered as an equalizer in the

• The differences in the sexes are reflective in social-role, not

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

Abuse Shop-lifting Murder

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

The mechanisms of Adler’s theory are the following:

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

▪ “Opportunity theory” theory of female criminality is developed by Rita J. Simon

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

▪ Another interpretation linking women’s liberation to female crime is the economic

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

▪ Daly and Chesney-Lind (1988) raise two key questions in relation to

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

▪ In 1950, Pollak suggested that crimes committed by women went largely

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

▪ Differential discretion predicts that chivalry is used disproportionately during the

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

CONTRIBUTING FACTORS TOWARDS

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

EFFECTS & SOCIETAL REACTION OF

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

MEASURES TO CONTROL CRIMES COMMITTED BY

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

WHAT ARE THE BURNING ISSUES TO BE TACKLED BY

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

School of Behavioral Sciences | National Forensic Sciences University

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