Criminologists agree that the gender gap in crime is universal: Women are always and everywhere less likely than men to commit criminal acts. The experts disagree, however, on a number of key issues: Is the gender gap stable or variant over time and across space? If there is variance, how may it best be explained? Are the causes of female crime distinct from or similar to those of male crime? Can traditional sociological theories of crime explain female crime and the gender gap in crime? Do gender-neutral or gender-specific theories hold the most explanatory promise? In this chapter we first examine patterns of female offending and the gender gap. Second, we review the “gender equality hypothesis” as well as several recent developments in theorizing about gender differences in crime. Third, we expand on a gendered paradigm for explaining female crime first sketched elsewhere. We conclude with recommendations for future work.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2083439.pdf

Gender and crime: Toward a gendered theory of female offending.

This study applies Agnew's general strain theory (GST) to two fundamental questions about gender and crime: (1) How can we explain the higher rate of crime among males? (2) How can we explain why females engage in crime? With respect to the first question, the authors suggest that gender differences in types of strain and the reaction to strain help one understand the gender gap in criminal behavior. With respect to the second question, it is argued that several types of strain may lead to female crime under the proper circumstances. In this area, GST has much in common with numerous accounts that explain female crime in terms of oppression.

Gender and Crime: A General Strain Theory Perspective

A meta-analysis of naturalistic studies of the academic performance-delinquency relationship and of intervention studies aimed both at improving academic performance and reducing delinquency found that children with lower academic performance offended more frequently, committed more serious and violent offenses, and persisted in their offending. The association was stronger for males than females and for whites than for African Americans. Academic performance predicted delinquency independent of socioeconomic status. Some intervention and prevention programs, using law-related or moral education components with adolescent children and self-control, social skills, and parent training components with young school-age children, were found to effect significant improvements in academic performance and delinquency.

Academic Performance and Delinquency

This research examines the overall and relative effects of the elements of Hirschi's Social Bonding Theory on four separate measures of deviance using data drawn from a sample of 3065 adolescents. ...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/4106137.pdf

Social Control and Delinquent Behavior: An Examination of the Elements of the Social Bond

This article addresses two issues that have received little attention in empirical research-the mechanisms explaining variation in violent delinquency within gender and variation in levels of violence across gender, or the gender gap. Toward these ends, the article synthesizes arguments from differential association theory, feminist theory, and gender studies. The outcome is a theoretical model of gender and violent delinquency that focuses on the interplay between structural positions and cultural processes. The theoretical model includes a core construct of differential association theory-the learning of definitions favorable to violence-as well as arguments about cultural definitions or meanings of gender and gender differences in the role of familial controls and peer influence, which are derived from feminist theory and gender studies. It then examines how these cultural processes are conditioned by structural positions. One of the key arguments is that the violent delinquency of females is controlled through rather subtle, indirect mechanisms, while the violence of males is controlled in more direct, overt ways. The results of the empirical analysis support the the-oretical arguments, contribute to the limited understanding of the variation in violent offending among females, and explain the sources of the gender gap in violent delinquency. The article thereby allows greater understanding of the broader phenomenon of juvenile violence.

https://faculty.washington.edu/matsueda/courses/517/Readings/HEIMER_et_al-1999-Criminology.pdf

The gendering of violent delinquency

This paper explores a much neglected issue in delinquency research—the relationship between sexual status and self-reported delinquent action. Utilizing questionnaire data from a large sample of black and white adolescents, females were found to report less delinquent activity than males. However, sexual status explained very little variance in delinquent action and when controls for “intervening” sociological variables were implemented the impact of sexual status ws reduced even more. When introduced in a multivariate analysis together with measures of an adolescent's relationships with conventional and unconventional persons, values and institutions sexual status explained between 0.5% and 2% of the variance in delinquency within the two racial categories. Nevertheless, a small statistically significant relationship persisted and can be given a variety of sociological and nonspciological interpretations.

Gary J. Jensen

Papers

Sex differences in delinquency