This report examines current conceptions of sex differences in adult crime trends and assesses continued differences in female relative to male criminality. Our analysis relies mainly on national arrest statistics of the Uniform Crime Reports, but our treatment of these statistics goes considerably beyond that of previous analysts. Our interpretation of the national data is supplemented by a variety of localized studies of police and court statistics as well as by autobiographical and case history studies of thieves. In contrast to popular and scientific claims, we question whether female crime is rising and whether women are catching up with males in the commission of masculine, violent, serious, male-dominated and white-collar types of crime. The arrest gains of females are in the category of vagrancy and in the petty-property crime categories of larceny, fraud, and forgery. Alternative views concerning female crime and the forces shaping it are suggested. It is proposed that the factors shaping sex differences in arrest patterns are changes in reporting procedures and law enforcement practices, economic factors, the maintenance of traditional conceptions of female roles, limited access to illegitimate opportunities due to restricted participation in the legitimate labor market, and the absence of viable female criminal subcultures or of access to male criminal subcultures.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/2577314

Sex Differences in Patterns of Adult Crime, 1965–77: A Review and Assessment

A Review and Assessment

In recent years, two Swedish companies have been a focus of substantial media attention: TeliaSonera and Lundin Petroleum. The defensive strategies employed by the businesses will be analysed on the basis of Stanley Cohen’s (2009) theoretical work on processes of denial and neutralisation techniques. This paper will focus on a particular form of denial whereby the businesses try to explain why they have been doing business despite the risks that this has involved. The paper links together the companies’ communications with the contexts in which they occur and the structures that might be expected to influence how the companies choose to frame their communications. The presence of the corporations in areas where crimes have been committed is not denied, but implicatory denials are employed to justify the corporations’ operations by referring to a higher good. When the corporations frame their businesses as contributing to development, democracy and peace in the countries in which they operate, the corporations use well-known discourses that underline Swedish or Nordic generosity, helpfulness and decency. The analysis draws on post-colonial theory and the image of the Nordic countries as being particularly “good” in relation to the rest of the world.

Cannabis sales and immigrant youth gangs: an exploratory study of market structure and youth gang evolution

This paper compares the coverage of women and crime topics in all known introductory criminology textbooks published from 1956 to 1965 (N = 15) and from 1981 to 1990 (N = 29). Few changes are noted over time, either in the number of pages devoted to women and crime topics or in the women and crime topics discussed most often by textbook authors. I also examine in detail several sexist themes regarding women as criminals and crime victims, which appear often in the older textbooks and reappear all too frequently in the newer books. I conclude by discussing the implications of my findings for criminal justice education.

From vamps and tramps to teases and flirts: Stereotypes of women in criminology textbooks, 1956 to 1965 and 1981 to 1990

Much recent criticism of criminology textbooks has centered on the lack of space devoted to women, both as criminals and as victims of crime (see Wilson and Rigsby 1975; Balkan et al. 1980; Gibbons 1982; Schur 1984). Few authors, however, provide substantial empirical evidence to support their criticisms; Balkan et al. (1980, p. iii), for example, simply assert that "material on women . .. has been neglected in conventional [criminology] texts." Gibbons (1982, p. 374) merely cites seven texts published between 1964 and 1978 which he claims "generally overlook" the subject. The most thorough investigation of the issue is an article by Wilson and Rigsby (1975) which examines the actual page coverage of "women and crime" topics in 17 criminology texts published from 1952 to 1974. Wilson and Rigsby conclude that criminology texts largely omit women and crime topics; they attribute this omission to the dearth of empirical research on women and crime. This paper reexamines Wilson and Rigsby's findings by comparing coverage of women and crime in 1) sociology journals published from 1956 to 1960 with coverage in journals published from 1976 to 1980; and 2) coverage in criminology texts published from 1956 to 1965 with coverage in texts published from 1976 to 1985. The data show that despite impressive recent increases in the publication of research on women and crime, criminology texts show little improvement in the coverage of women and crime. I conclude by discussing several possible reasons why many authors of criminology textbooks ignore these topics.

Constance M. Rigsby

Papers

Is crime a man's world? Issues in the exploration of criminality