Perspectives on Crime

Feminists: Freda Adler, Frances

Heidensohn, Pat Carlen
Learning Objectives
At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
 Name the theorists associated with this perspective.
 State the basic assumptions of the perspective.
 Describe Adler’s ‘Female Crime and Women’s Liberation’, Carlen’s
‘Women, Crime and Poverty’ and Heidensohn’s Women and Social
Control’.
 State the criticisms of the perspective.
 Apply the theory to crime in the Caribbean.
Feminist Perspective on Crime
 Suggests that the sociology of crime and deviance tend to focus on
male criminality.

 It is generally argued that women commit fewer crimes but are

disproportionally the victims of crime.

 This perspective attempts to explain why some women commit crime

and also explain why women commit fewer crimes than men.
Freda Adler – Female Crime and Women
Liberation (1975)
 Adler rejected biological explanations of female criminality, which
argued that differences in behaviour between men and women are
biologically determined.
 Increased hormone levels
 Men with below normal levels of androgen are less aggressive than women.

 Alluded that changes in the society have led to changes in women’s

behaviour and hence their increased involvement in crime.
Freda Adler – Female Crime and Women
Liberation (1975)
1. The rise of the women’s liberation movement of the 1960’s.
 This movement was accompanied by an increase in female criminal
activity in which women were committing new and more serious
crimes. Also, a new type of more serious female criminal had emerged.

2. Changes in the roles of women in the workforce.

 As women took on traditional male roles in the workforce, they were
also taking on male roles in the criminal world.
 She pointed to a noted increase in female involvement in traditional
male dominated crimes, such as robbery and embezzlement in the US,
Western Europe, New Zealand and India.
Pat Carlen – Women, Crime and Poverty
(1985)
 Carlen conducted a study of 39 women in 1985. The women had been
convicted of one or more crimes and were between the ages of 15 and
46.
 Prostitution, theft, arson, violence, fraud.

 From the study, she concluded that these women had not benefited
from the liberation movement and as a result it could not account for
an increase in female criminality.
 The working class background of her subjects are fairly typical of
female offenders convicted of serious crimes.
 Poverty

 Women in the lower class are more liable to criminalization than those
in the middle class.
Pat Carlen – Women, Crime and Poverty
(1985)
 From the study Carlen pointed out four factors that were responsible
for the women’s deviance. They were:
 Drug addiction
 The quest for excitement
 Being brought up in foster care
 Poverty

 Placed emphasis on ‘poverty’ and ‘being brought up in foster care’ as

the two most important factors and would have led to ‘drug addiction’
and ‘the quest for excitement’.
 Of the 39 women, 32 were poor, 7 unemployed and only 2 had good jobs.
Pat Carlen – Women, Crime and Poverty
(1985)
 Borrowed from Hirschi’s (1969) control theory to explain her findings.
 Working class women are controlled by the promise of rewards which
stem from the workplace and family. As a result, the women are
encouraged into ‘class’ and ‘gender’ deals. However, when these deals
fall through, are not available or the women have not been persuaded
that these rewards are real, criminality becomes a possibility.
 The women generally had little to lose and more to gain from crime.
 Class deals – material rewards which come from being a respectable,
hard-working woman.
 Gender deals – psychological and material rewards which comes from
relying on a male breadwinner.
Pat Carlen – Women, Crime and Poverty
(1985)
 Carlen go on to explain how the rejection or failure of the ‘class’ and ‘gender’
deals led the women to crime.
 Poverty and foster care had caused the women to reject both the class and
gender deals.
Rejection of the ‘class deals’
 Few of the women had experienced the benefits of the class deals.
 Never had access to material goods and leisure activities.

 Several made attempts to find a legitimate way of earning a descent standard of

living.
 However, the promise of a descent wage did not materialize and the women
became frustrated. Poverty, together with feelings on injustice and
powerlessness caused them to turn to crime as a way of resolving the problems
of poverty.
Pat Carlen – Women, Crime and Poverty
(1985)
Rejection of the ‘gender deals’
 Women are generally deterred from crime because they are brought up to
see themselves as the ‘guardians of domestic morality’.
 They have less opportunity to commit crime because they are closely
supervised by males.
 The patriarchal ideology promises women happiness and fulfilment from
family life.
 For most of the women the gender deals had not been made or were
rejected because they were the victims of abuse, first by fathers and then
by husbands.
 They are also controlled by men – fathers then husbands.

 These created feelings of rejection which left them in a situation where

they have to survive on their own and crime became an option.
Quick Pause
 Pause the lesson and reflect on the Carlen’s and Alder’s theories,
which of these theories do you think offer a better explanation of
female crime in the Caribbean?
Frances Heidensohn – Women and Social
Control
 Heidensohn attempts to explain why women commit fewer crimes than
men.
 Women commit fewer crimes than men because in male dominated,
patriarchal societies, women are more effectively controlled than men,
making it more difficult for them to break the law.
 Women commit fewer crimes because:
 As housewives, they are limited to the domestic domain, this leaves
them with no time to engage in illegal activities because they are
occupied in housework and child care.
 Women who challenge the housewife role could risk being victims of
domestic violence. Husbands and fathers are always monitoring their
wives and daughters.
Frances Heidensohn – Women and Social
Control
 In public places, women are closely observed by society; seen in the
way women are subjected to societies approval.
 In the work place women are controlled because they fear sexual
harassment, so they would not do things that would subject them to
unpleasant remarks.
Note Well
T. Hirschi’s ‘Control Theory’
 This argues that humans are not naturally wicked or prone to crime
neither are they naturally virtuous or prone to conformity.
 Humans are rational, as a result, will turn to crime when its
advantages outweigh the advantages of conformity.
Criticisms
 Heidensohn did not base her theory on empirical evidence.
 Carlen’s sample cannot be generalised because it was too small.
 Also, Hirschi’s control theory was tested on delinquents rather than on
adults, hence it ability to be applied to Carlen’s sample of adult
women is doubted.
 The perspective portray women as passive victims.
Lecture Wrap!
 Poverty or women’s liberation, which offers a better explanation
of increasing female criminality in the Caribbean and the world
by extension?

 Submit your answers via the WhatsApp group chat.

 Respond to two of your peers submissions.
References
Chinapoo, C., James, N., & Lee-Paisley, M. (2014). CAPE Sociology. Harlow:
Pearson Education Limited.
Haralambos, M., & Holborn, M. (2008). Sociology: Themes and perspectives.
London: Harper Collins Publishers Limited.
Mustapha, N. (2013). Sociology for Caribbean Students (2nd ed.). Kingston: Ian
Randle Publishers.