Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-w5vf4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-09-04T05:31:09.301Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Female Criminality and the Status of Women

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Cathy Spatz Widom  and
Abigail J. Stewart
Cathy Spatz Widom
Affiliation:
Indiana University, Department of Forensic Studies
Abigail J. Stewart
Affiliation:
Boston University, Department of Psychology
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The relationship between female crime rates and the status of women is examined using information from 43 nations around the world. Hypotheses derived from four major theories — equality, opportunity, economic, and social disorganization - are tested, as well as variations of equality theory (emancipation, sex-role differentiation, and status of women) which lead to different predictions. Correlations are computed for variables reflecting the status of women and general levels of development and disorganization across these nations and two dependent measures of female arrest rates — level and distribution. Caveats concerning the quality of the data are discussed and the difficulty in separating the effects of equality from opportunity and each from the overall effects of modernization is noted.

Relationships to male crime are neither unidimensional nor simple. While equality, emancipation, and status of women theories received support, economic theory focusing on the participation of women in the labor force did not. Moreover, social, political and biological equality affect female arrest rates differently. Increases in social equality are related to increases in property crimes (larceny, fraud, and counterfeiting), but to decreases in sex crimes. Increases in political equality are related to increases in property crimes and increases in biological equality to increases in female arrests for murder.

Résumé

Résumé

Le lien causal entre le taux de criminalité féminine et le statut de la femme est étudié ici grâce aux renseignements recueuillis à travers 43 pays différents. Les hypothèses issues des 4 théories principales — égalité, opportunité, désorganisation économique et sociale - sont réexaminées au même titre que le sont les variables qui composent la théorie de l‘égalité (émancipation, différentiation des rôles selon le sexe et statut de la femme), théorie qui a conduit à l‘établissement de prédictions diverses.

A travers ces pays les corrélations de prédictions diverses variables reflétant le statut de la femme et les niveaux globaux de développement et de désorganisation ont été évaluées, ainsi que les deux composantes du taux d'arrestation des femmes - niveau et distribution —. Des mises en garde concernant la fiabilité des données statistiques sont mentionnées et la difficulté qu'il y a à différencier les effets de l'égalité de ceux de l'opportunité puis, pour chacun de ces principes des effets généraux de la modernisation, est notée.

Les liens de cause à effet concernant la criminalité féminine ne sont ni unidimensionnels ni simples. Alors même que les théories sur l'égalité, l'émancipation et le statut des femmes recevaient approbation, la théorie économique fondée sur la participation des femmes aux forces productives était négligée. De plus les principes d'égalité sociale, politique et biologique affectent différemment le taux d'arrestation des femmes. La généralisation de l'égalité sociale est liée à la fois à l'accroissement des crimes sur les biens (larcins, fraudes, contrefaçons) et à la diminution des crimes sexuels. La généralisation de l'égalité politique est reliée à l'augmentation de la criminalité axée sur la propriété, et l'égalité biologique influence l'accroissement des arrestations de femmes pour meurtres.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
International Annals of Criminology , Volume 24 , Issue 1-2 , 1986 , pp. 137 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 International Society for Criminology

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

Requests for reprints should be addressed to Cathy Spatz Widom, Department of Forensic Studies, Indiana University, 302 Sycamore Hall, Bloomington, Indiana 47405. This is a revised version of a paper originally presented at the 1977 annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology. The authors wish to thank David G. Winter and Michael Sokol for assistance with the computer analyses and Wesley G. Skogan, Michael G. Maxfield, Philip Parnell, and Ruth Colker for comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript.

References

REFERENCES

ADLER, Frieda (1975), Sisters in Crime. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
ARCHER, Dane and Gartner, Richard (1976)/'Violent acts and violent times: a comparative approach to postwar homicide rates“. American Sociological Review 41:937–963.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
BERTRAND, M.A. Unpub- “The insignificance of female criminality in the light of the lished hegemonic conceptions of sexual roles and the privatization of women”. Paper presented at the First Conference of the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control, Florence, Italy, 1973.Google Scholar
BLOOM, B.L. (1966), “A census track analysis of socially deviant behaviors”. Multivariate Behavioral Research 1:307–320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DUNCAN, O.D. and Duncan, B. (1955), “Residential distribution and occupational stratification”. American Journal of Sociology 60:493–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
EKSTRAND, Laurie E. and Eckert, William A. (1978), “Defendant's sex as a factor in sentencing”. Experimental Study of Politics 6:90–112.Google Scholar
HACKER, E. (1941), Kriminal statistische und Kriminalactiologische Berichte. Miskole, Hungary: Ludwig.Google Scholar
HOUCHON, G. (1967), “Les mecanismes criminogenes dans une Société Urbaine Africaine”. Revue Internationale de Criminologie et de Police Technique 21: 271–292.Google Scholar
LOMBROSO, Ceasare (1903) The Female Offender. Tr. New York: Appleton. (1920)Google Scholar
MILLER, Patricia Y. (1976), Book review of Sisters in Crime (Adler) and Women and Crime (Simon). Sex Roles 2:407–410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MULVIHILL, D., Tumin, M., and Curtis, L. (1969), Crimes of Violence. Volume 12. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
NAGEL, Stuart and Weitzman, Lenore J. (1972), “Double standard of American justice”. Society 9: 18-25, 62–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
NETTLER, Gwynn (1974), Explaining Crime. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
SIMON, Rita J. (1975), The Contemporary Woman and Crime. Rockville, Maryland: National Institute of Mental Health.Google Scholar
SMART, Carol (1977), Women, Crime and Criminology: A Feminist Critique. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
STEFFENSMEIER, Darrell J. (1982), “Trends in Female crime: its, still a man's world”. Pp. 117–129 in Price, BP. and Sokoloff, NJ. (eds.) The Criminal Justice System and Women. New York: Boardman.Google Scholar
STEWART, Abigail J. and Winter, David G. (1977) 'The nature and causes of female suppression“. Signs 2: 531–553.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SUTHERLAND, Edwin H. and Cressey, Donald R. (1974) Criminology. Philadelphia: Lippincott.Google Scholar
TURNER, S. (1969), “The ecology of delinquency”. In Sellin, T. and Wolfgang, M.E. (eds.) Delinquency: Selected Studies. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
WEIS, Joseph G. (1976), “Liberation and crime: the invention of the new female criminal”. Crime and Social Justice 6:17–27.Google Scholar
WIDOM, Cathy Spatz (1978) “Toward an understanding of female criminality”. In Maher, B.A. (ed.) Progress in Experimental Personality Research. Volume 8. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
WIDOM, Cathy Spatz (1984) “Sex roles, criminality, and psychopathology”. In Widom, C.S. (ed.) Sex Roles and Psychopathology. New York: Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar