h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Why is crime seemingly male-dominated?

Taking recorded crime statistics, men are 21 times more likely to be found guilty of a motoring offence, 23 times more likely to be a burglar, 33 times more likely to be a car thief, 17 times more likely to commit criminal damage, 17 times more likely to be drunk and 10 times more likely to be convicted of drug offences. (Coleman & Moynihan 1996).

Are these figures reflective of actual crime, or are men more likely to be prosecuted thus skewing the figures?

If the figures are reflective of actualities, why do Forumites think this is so?


(Note: This is liable to be the first of many criminological questions I'm likely to throw up )

Women are better liars than men

Cracking topic for a thread SWL.... I will collect my thoughts and post in a bit....

Women just flutter their eyelashes at the jurey and get let off
*thinks*

More seriously I think uits the way we react.

Men are testosterone fuelled and tend to react immediately.

Women tend to think longer term and are thus less likely to get caught up in reactionery violence, or crime.

However, drinking patterns are changing this, more women are being arrested for disorderly behaviour - again though, because they are less likely to be violent, they are more often just cautioned.

I think: different attitudes towards risk (and over-assessment of abilities) and different attitudes towards community versus independence.

It's interesting in the sense that men are more often the victims of crime too, and I would guess for similar reasons. If someone tries to intimidate you, it makes you more likely to resist, right? Not a good survival instinct. In the same vein, I will walk home alone at night. Not doing so because it's not safe would feel like giving up against people who don't deserve to win (muggers etc.).

Personally, I think the *fight or flight* response more often results in *fight* for males and *flight* in females. Lots of exceptions, of course but in general it seems to hold up.

Testosterone would account for a lot of that but societal influence bolsters it's effects.

>*flight* in females. Lots of exceptions,<

I'm certainly no exception...

in a silly girly way..

eyelashes..

The concept of 'fight or flight' response to stress is based on research done on men.

Women and men respond to stress differently. There's recent research on women's responses that suggests that women will 'tend and befriend' instead of getting aggressive. Obviously I am talking collective trends here not individual absolutes.

>>most stress researchers in the past have been very quick to study behaviors like aggression and withdrawal and have failed to notice very important behaviors like affiliation<<

http://mentalhealth.about.com/cs/womensmentalhealth/a/tendbefriend.htm


Alot of crime is committed by people under stress. Often it's the longterm stress of poverty or of having been raised in violent families or communities. Men respond to that differently than women. Men get locked up in prisons, women in the past got locked up in mental institutions. Now they get drunk or take antidepressants.

Similar to what Bouncy is saying, I also think that women make different choices. Women have to take their responsibility for children more seriously, so are less likely to risk their own selves unless it becomes absolutely necessary (that's a biological imperative and a social one).

I think there are significant socialisation issues too. Boys aren't taught many good ways of managing their energy, anger, testosterone levels. Girls are increasingly getting bad messages now too, which combined with the increasing levels of women's social and political power is a recipe for disaster.

Plus the big message of society that individualism rules so you are to get what you want.


So to answer SWL's questions, it's the usual mix of hormones, socialisation, evolution, and deterioration of society

This post has been removed.

Go on, who was that then?

I've read that when women do commit crimes, they tend to be punnished much more harshly than men committing the same acts, almost as though the criminal justice system (mostly male judges) finds it to be worse that a woman might step outside of the nuturing protecting role society has lined up for her. I guess this is mitigated these days by the tarrifs set on various types of crimes but wonder if judges still tend towards the stiffer end of the available sentence than the lenient end.

In the uk, I think the large majority of the women in prison are there for financial petty crimes rather than the violent, which could easily be punnished in the community, and generally would be if the criminal were male.

Don't have any links for all this, it is gleaned from years of listening to Women's Hour on radio 4.

Don't know statistics, but when you say
>outside of the nuturing protecting role society has lined up for her<
as if it's wholly society's doing, remember that nature was there first...

... ach, No...

My fault, I posted a link to an academic article, plus some quotes from it. I would have thought that it would come under fair use since it was only a few isolated sentences, but never mind.

The article is on gender and psycopathy. Actually it looks like I didn't need to quote from it anyway, since I can still read it without my university access connected:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/112171913/abstract

Can't be bothered to rehash the rest of the post right now.

Potentially offensive and certainly broad sweeping generalisations ahead.




Women bitch: Men fight:

I havent heard of many people been thrown into prison for criticising othr peoples out of season blouses

Women internalise their problems and men kickout which makes for a ver different response to that same situations. As others have said I think this is a mixture of physical and social drives. I was encouraged to sort things out physically as a kid and I know lots of friends who were no different. That's not to say fighting but if I had a problem I was taught how to get it sorted using my own hands.

Some crimes reflect other trends. Driving offenses are partly to do with womens greater all round caution in action and the fact that more men drive more miles than women.

Incarceration rates that differe for similar crimes across the gender divide are linked to prison overcrowding. Simply put its easier to find a space to lock up women.

Then there are other instances where women are treated more leniently. If a burly police man has his bum pinched by a petite drunk woman on a hen night do we think it would have the same out come if the genders and sizes were reversed?

I entered secondary school the first year that sorporal punishment was outlawed, but in primary school despite the fact that girls sometimes scrappen in the playground, were rude to teachers or broke windows with footballs they never got caned for doing the ssame things as boys would get caned for. I cant remember any girls being caned. I have never heard a girl talk about being caned. Although a lot of this is partly to do with girls not being so likely to succumb to braggadagio as boys about suffering pyhsical trials I also think it has a lot to do with men not wanting to and thus not steeping girls into the rough realities of life. Thus as adults they are more likely not to be prepared to get into it themselves.

Not at all offensive blicky. I've always known I was devo from the normal woman. Not that I've committed crimes though. But I did go to an all girls school and physical fights were not uncommon. Many of us learned to drive at 17/18, and cautious girly style driving was not considered

So I was not especially a devo in that environment, compared to other females. But in terms of the normal woman like you see eg on telly, yes I am. And I like it.

Oh yes, you are right women often do get away with 'murder'. I remember once as a teenager getting very drunk and telling a copper to ****off, when he approached me. He just smiled sweetly and told me to be on my way, (I think, because my memory is naturally a bit ). Being white is also an advantage in situations like this probably.

Research shows that the vast majority of crime is carried out by young men. The peak ages for male offending are 19-25 whilst for women it's 16, so one factor could be maturity - immature people commit crime.

Some theorists figure mature criminals consider 3 factors; Risk, Effort & Reward. If the risk of getting caught is low, little effort is required and the reward is high there is more chance of someone committing a crime. For women the risk can be higher than for men because they have more responsibility to children & family than men. Also, women face a double punishment from the courts and also the disapproval of friends, family & society.

>>The peak ages for male offending are 19-25 whilst for women it's 16, so one factor could be maturity - immature people commit crime. <<

I bet that's also to do with the need for young men to test themselves. Most cultures offer men ways of doing this, as part of the shift from boyhood to adulthood. Our doesn't do that, at least not very well. The boys I grew up with got drunk and drove off bridges or into power poles. Or played rugby. Or drank and partied so hard they ended up in hospital. Risk is a big part of it, as well as physicality. If we don't find creative and constructive ways for boys/men to do that then they'll find their own destructive ones.

"Research shows that the vast majority of crime is carried out by young men.

Is that crimes commited or morelikely crimes reportedor where convictions are secured?




"The peak ages for male offending are 19-25 whilst for women it's 16, so one factor could be maturity - immature people commit crime.

Wrong. The peak ages for commiting *visible* crimes is 19-25. That is crimes that take place in public spaces and more often than not where the offender doesnt mind people seeing and infact somtimes want people to see in some cases.





"Some theorists figure mature criminals consider 3 factors; Risk, Effort & Reward. If the risk of getting caught is low, little effort is required and the reward is high there is more chance of someone committing a crime.

...and it almost goes without saying that if the chances of being caught are low it could be beausethe crime is hard to detect in th first place. Then if such crimes are detected its hard to find out who and howold the offender is.

Then there is the reward involved, how many people who worked at Enron or BAe ended up in jail for their part in frauds? Think about it aswell if you run a bank and find a fraudster near the top do you publicly prosecute them or rightof the loss sack them and save your institution from negative publicity?




"For women the risk can be higher than for men because they have more responsibility to children & family than men. Also, women face a double punishment from the courts and also the disapproval of friends, family & society.

True and lets not forget the fact that no woman Ive known relished the thought of going to a party where one woman was wearing an outfit similar to hers...what are the chancesof such women running the risk of being locked up 24/7 with hundreds of women all in the same outfit?