Socio Economic Status and It's Relation to Crime
Choose one of the following socio-demographic characteristics: age, sex, ethnicity, or socio-economic status (SES). Describe its relationship to crime, paying attention to whether that relationship is observable at the individual and/ or the aggregate-level. What are the major theoretical explanations for that relationship? To what extent are the results of prior empirical research consistent with those theoretical explanations?
Women have traditionally been perceived as “the nurturer’s” in the family unit,
and men as the “bread-winners”. However, the recent battle for gender
equality, and the dissipation of the rigid guidelines of masculinity and
femininity shaped by the politics of gender, in conjunction with a media frenzy
over the subtly sexy violent woman depicted on screen, has seen the
increase in the acceptance of women in crime. Statistically the percentage of
female arrests between 1960 and 1990 has risen by 8%, rising from 11% to
19%, almost doubling itself. Most criminologists will agree that males are
largely overrepresented in crime statistics, this is recognized universally. This
issue of the gender-gap is multi-faceted as it addresses not only the need to
understand female criminality, but also, male criminality, and the motivations
for crime amidst both genders. Thus, the issue of understanding gender with
regards to crime is ternary; firstly it must be established what the reasoning
behind women who commit crime is, secondly the gender gap must be
addressed, and thirdly the reasoning behind men who commit crime with
regards to their gender must be established.
Women account for a very small percentage of all crime statistics, 19% in
1990. Furthermore, men offend at much higher rates than women for all crime
categories except prostitution. The gender gap in crime is greatest for serious
crime and least for mild forms of law-breaking. When considering that the
gender gap is smallest in
Women have traditionally been perceived as “the nurturer’s” in the family unit,
and men as the “bread-winners”. However, the recent battle for gender
equality, and the dissipation of the rigid guidelines of masculinity and
femininity shaped by the politics of gender, in conjunction with a media frenzy
over the subtly sexy violent woman depicted on screen, has seen the
increase in the acceptance of women in crime. Statistically the percentage of
female arrests between 1960 and 1990 has risen by 8%, rising from 11% to
19%, almost doubling itself. Most criminologists will agree that males are
largely overrepresented in crime statistics, this is recognized universally. This
issue of the gender-gap is multi-faceted as it addresses not only the need to
understand female criminality, but also, male criminality, and the motivations
for crime amidst both genders. Thus, the issue of understanding gender with
regards to crime is ternary; firstly it must be established what the reasoning
behind women who commit crime is, secondly the gender gap must be
addressed, and thirdly the reasoning behind men who commit crime with
regards to their gender must be established.
Women account for a very small percentage of all crime statistics, 19% in
1990. Furthermore, men offend at much higher rates than women for all crime
categories except prostitution. The gender gap in crime is greatest for serious
crime and least for mild forms of law-breaking. When considering that the
gender gap is smallest in