Sex differences in crime are differences between men and women as the perpetrators or victims of crime. Such studies may belong to fields such as criminology (the scientific study of criminal behavior), sociobiology (which attempts to demonstrate a causal relationship between biological factors, in this case biological sex and human behaviors), or feminist studies. Despite the difficulty of interpreting them, crime statistics may provide a way to investigate such a relationship from a gender differences perspective. An observable difference in crime rates between men and women might be due to social and cultural factors, crimes going unreported, or to biological factors (for example, testosterone or sociobiological theories). The nature or motive of the crime itself may also require consideration as a factor. Gendered profiling might affect the reported crime rates.
Statistics have been consistent in reporting that men commit more criminal acts than women. Self-reported delinquent acts are also higher for men than for women, although lower than official data. Low levels of self control are associated with criminal activity. Many professionals have offered explanations for this sex difference. Some differing explanations include men's evolutionary tendency toward risk and violent behavior, sex differences in activity, social support, or gender inequality.
General theory of crime The "general theory of crime" is accepted among scholars as one of the most valid theories of crime. Burton et al. (1998) assessed Gottfredson and Hirschi's (1990) work on the subject, which stated that individuals with lower levels of self-control are more likely to be involved in criminal behavior, in a gender-sensitive context. The purpose of their study was to account for the gender gap in crime rates. By using a self-reporting questionnaire, Burton et al. (1998) retrieved data from 555 people aged eighteen and older in the Cincinnati, Ohio, area. Early results from the study indicated that low self-control was highly positively correlated to criminal behavior in both genders, but was especially significant for males. For females, the relationship became significant when opportunity was introduced and considered with level of self-control. Opportunity was not a significant indicator of male criminal behavior, which the authors attribute to the assumption that opportunity for criminal behavior is ubiquitous for men. In this study, opportunity was measured by the number of nights per week individuals go out for recreation purposes. Similarly, the authors conclude that women are less likely to be exposed to opportunities for criminal behavior, speculating that "constraints often placed on females, and that accompany their lifestyles" contribute to less opportunity for crime. With self-control being significant for males but not for females, the conclusions of this study pointed toward the notion that men and women commit crimes for different reasons. The notion that self-control was only significant for women when combined with opportunity helps account for the gender gap seen in crime rates.Cullen et al., 1998.
David Rowe, Alexander Vazsonyi, and Daniel Flannery, authors of Sex Differences in Crime: Do Means and Within-Sex Variation Have Similar Causes?, focus on the widely acknowledged fact that there is a large sex difference in crime: more men than women commit crimes. This has been true over time and across cultures. There is also a greater number of men who commit serious crimes resulting in injury or death than women.Rowe, Vazsonyi, & Flannery, 1995 In a study that looked at self-reports of delinquent acts, researchers identified several sex differences by looking at sex ratios. For every woman, 1.28 men drink alcohol, which is a large influencer in deviant behavior. For every woman, 2.7 men committed the crime of stealing up to $50. Lastly, for every woman, 3.7 men steal more than $50. Also, more males are involved in homicides, as both the perpetrators and victims, than females. Furthermore, one male is more delinquent than another for mainly the same reasons that men typically engage in criminal acts more than women.
Nature, nurture, and life course
Onset Terrie Moffitt and Avshalom Caspi compare childhood risk factors of males and females portraying childhood-onset and adolescent-onset antisocial behavior, which influences deviant behavior in individuals. Childhood-onset delinquency is attributed to lack of parenting, temperament and behavior problems. On the other hand, adolescent-onset delinquents did not encounter similar childhood problems. This study showed a male-to-female ratio of 10:1 for those experiencing childhood-onset delinquency and 15:1 for adolescent-onset delinquency. Moffitt and Caspi hypothesized that "'life-course-persistent' antisocial behavior originates early in life, when the difficult behavior of a high-risk young child is exacerbated by a high-risk social environment".Moffitt & Caspi, 2001 Also, "'adolescent-limited' antisocial behavior emerges alongside puberty, where otherwise healthy youngsters experience dysphoria during the relatively role-less years between biological maturation and access to mature privileges and responsibilities", called the maturity gap. They look at the taxonomy theory, which states that the gender difference in crime are based on sex differences in the risk factors for life-course-persistent antisocial behavior. Based on research, girls are less likely than boys to have nervous system dysfunctions, difficult temperament, late maturity in verbal and motor development, learning disabilities, and childhood behavioral problems.
Sociology Gender differences in crime can be connected to socioeconomic factors and marginalization.
Considerations of gender in regard to crime have been considered to be largely ignored and pushed aside in criminological and sociological study, until recent years, to the extent of female deviance having been marginalized.(Heidensohn, 1995). In the past fifty years of sociological research into crime and deviance, sex differences were understood and quite often mentioned within works, such as Merton's theory of anomie; however, they were not critically discussed, and often any mention of female delinquency was only as comparative to males, to explain male behaviors, or through defining the girl as taking on the role of a boy, namely, conducting their behavior and appearance as that of a tomboy and by rejecting the female gender role, adopting stereotypical masculine traits.
Eagly and Steffen suggested in their meta-analysis of data on sex and aggression that beliefs about the negative consequences of violating gender expectations affect how both genders behave regarding aggression. Psychologist Anne Campbell argued that "cultural interpretations have 'enhanced' evolutionarily based sex differences by a process of imposition which stigmatises the expression of aggression by females and causes women to offer exculpatory (rather than justificatory) accounts of their own aggression."
One key reason contended for this lack of attention to females in crime and deviance is due to the view that female crime has almost exclusively been dealt with by men, from policing through to legislators, and that this has continued through into the theoretical approaches, quite often portraying what could be considered as a one-sided view, as Mannheim suggested.Feminism and Criminology In Britain (Heidensohn, 1995).
However, other contentions have been made as explanations for the invisibility of women in regard to theoretical approaches, such as: females have an '...apparently low level of offending'); that they pose less of a social threat than their male counterparts; that their 'delinquencies tend to be of a relatively minor kind', but also due to the fear that including women in research could threaten or undermine theories, as Thrasher and Sutherland feared would happen with their research.
Further theories have been contended, with many debates surrounding the involvement and ignoring of women within theoretical studies of crime; however, with new approaches and advances in feminist studies and masculinity studies, and the claims of increases in recent years in female crime, especially that of violent crime.Girls In The Youth Justice System
Past studies explained gender and crime through psychological and biological aspects. However, now specific sociological theories analyze the gender differences when it comes to committing crime. Brezina's research focuses on the "general strain theory," specifically, on why males and females have a gap rate in crime. One view is that the gender gap of crime is associated with different strains and various types of experiences males and females go through. For instance, their socialization, life events, home life, and relationships differ from one another. Because of this, research suggests that boys and men are more closely related to crime and delinquency. Brezina argues that because boys are more exposed to harsh punishment from their parents while growing up, negative experiences at school, no support system, and homelessness, they have more freedom to commit a crime. Brezina states that some boys and men tend to see crime as acceptable because they favor their "internalized 'masculine' values."
Brezina argues that girls and women have limited opportunities to commit crime. They, for example, are more dedicated to family and friends, have higher parental supervision, and are less likely to link themselves to delinquent peers. Therefore, their strains would be high family demands and lose of friendship. This leads to them reacting to strain differently than males do. Instead of coping their strain with crime, they express it with their emotions to eliminate the stress. The emotional response females receive are fear, guilt, anxiety, or shame, which decreases their chances of committing a crime. In addition, girls and women have a great amount of social support, which also leads to lower rate of crime. The types of strain that males and females experience can be an understanding of why there is a gender gap in crime.
Sociobiological and evolutionary psychology perspective
Evolutionary psychology has proposed several evolutionary explanations for gender differences in aggressiveness. Males can increase their reproductive success by polygyny which will lead the competition with other males over females. If the mother died, this may have had more serious consequences for a child than if the father died in the ancestral environment since there is a tendency for greater parental investments and caring for children by females than by males. Greater caring for children also leads to difficulty leaving them in order to either fight or flee. Anne Campbell writes that females may thus avoid direct physical aggressiveness and instead use strategies such as "friendship termination, gossiping, ostracism, and stigmatization".The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, edited by David M. Buss, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2005. Chapter 21 by Anne Campbell.
Psychologist and professor Mark van Vugt, from VU University at Amsterdam, Netherlands, has argued that males have evolved more aggressive and group-oriented in order to gain access to resources, territories, mates and higher status. His theory the Male Warrior hypothesis explains that males throughout hominid history have evolved to form coalitions or groups in order to engage in inter-group aggression and increase their chances of acquiring resources, mates and territory. Vugt argues that this evolved male social dynamic explains the human history of war to modern day gang rivalry which is under a process of male on male competition in order to gain resources and potential mates.