Diana Gomez Gender and Crime

Crime and Gender According to the data for the Bureau of Justice Statistics, females have lower arrest rates than males for nearly all crime categories except prostitution. Statistics also indicate that men are more likely to commit crime, both serious and not, than women. This is true for all countries, racial and ethnic groups, and for which data are available. In the United States, women comprise less than 20 percent of arrests for most crime classifications and is typically the smallest for the most serious offenses. Criminologists believe that the gender gap in crime is universal, women are always and everywhere less likely than men to commit criminal acts.
Moreover, the most significant variable associated to crime is gender. Gender gap is the difference in number between both genders in one particular state, area, zone or nation. It is the differences between women and men, as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, or attitudes. Public Policy Center researchers took two approaches to examining this issue of gender gap or gender differences. In the first, they examined the declining gender gap in arrests for all Part I Index Offenses using the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and linked these changes to changes in women’s economic circumstances and welfare provisions over time. Research professors point out that in the second approach, it involved conducting analyses of victim’s reports of the gender of their assailant using the National Crime Victimization Survey. These data are free from the bias that can affect police decision-making. The results indicate that there is evidence from both official (UCR) and victimization data (NCVS) that the gap between female and male offending has declined somewhat over recent decades. In criminology, statistics show, males do in fact commit crime, particularly violent crime, at higher rates than do females. Therefore, gender is an important consideration in the study of crime because offending is a gendered concept. Nonetheless, despite their differences, there are similarities in both genders pattern of offending. Most criminals, male and female, tend to be of low socioeconomic status, poorly educated, or unemployed. On the other hand, both are heavily involved in minor property and substance abuse offenses than in serious crimes like robbery or murder.
This gender gap in law-violation is found using data on arrests, convictions, self-reported crime, and victims’ reports about offenders. Although, self-report studies show men commit more crimes than females as stated above, the statistics released by the government are said to be over-exaggerated. The reports also point out that as women are being given more freedom, the female crime rate has increased, indicating as women become equal to men, they will commit the same amount of crime as men. Background information into the gender and crime indicates there is a great difference in the levels of female and male crime rates. The rate of female crime is rising faster and sociologists are arguing about why. The three key areas sociologists look into of why this is the case comes down to offending, victimization, and punishment. In addition, the justice system is seen as far more lenient towards females, however, radical females argue that some are punished more severely than others. Some theories that account for gender differences in crime rates are: biological theories, evolutionary theories, and social learning theories. This means that men are over-represented in crimes because they have a greater desire to enhance the chances of passing down their genetic material. For instance, men are more likely to victimize their partners when they are trying to leave them because they do not want to allow their mate to produce competing genetic material of other men. Males also tend to be more socialized and rewarded for displaying physical and aggressive behaviors, whereas, women are socialized to be more anxious, to fear aggression and to blame themselves. This would account for the over-representation of males in violent crime. In conclusion, in terms of gender, studies show females commit fewer violent crimes, such as homicide, robbery and assaults. The kinds of crimes women are most likely to commit are theft and violence against a person. Consequently, the clear and persistent differences in the crime rates of men and women are gender problems. However, the proportion of crimes committed by males and females are similar, although male to female crime rations have fallen over the years. In 2012 the prison population by gender was men 94% and women 6%. On the whole, the stats are not an accurate portrayal of women’s involvement in crime because they are better at hiding their crimes and so are more prominent in the dark figure.

Resources http://bjs.gov/index http://law.jrank.org/pages/1250/Gender-Crime-Differences-between-male-female-offending patterns.
http://new.abanet.org/domesticviolence