Gender, Crime and Victimisation

Pamela Davies, Author

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9781847870285, 9781847870278
• eBook ISBN: 9781473903395
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

Gender, Crime and Victimisation is a thoughtful and thought-provoking book, exploring gender patterns in both offending and victimisation. It offers a thorough examination of how these patterns in society are variously established and represented, researched, explained and responded to by policy makers and criminal justice agencies.

Bringing together key theory, research and policy developments, the book combines perspectives on the study of criminology with those of victimology and gender studies - drawing particularly on the influence of feminism. It analyses processes of criminalisation and social control, and their structural biases. It explores fears, anxieties and worries about crime, as well as particular vulnerabilities to crime.

The book employs a range of learning devices to support the student reader, including:

o Chapter overviews

o Case studies and examples

o Study questions

o Further reading at the end of each chapter

o A comprehensive glossary

Comprehensive and robust, Gender, Crime and Victimisation provides a stimulating and topical overview that will appeal to undergraduates,

1

THE GENDER AGENDA TO CRIME AND VICTIMISATION

CONTENTS

• Chapter aims
• Introduction
• Glossary
• The scope of this book
• Key foci for the book
• Crime, victimisation/social division nexus
• Gender salience?
• A gender agenda?
• Gender and gender dichotomies
• Case study: women and crime for economic gain
• The structure and layout of this book
• Study questions
• Suggestions for further reading

GLOSSARY TERMS

Primary victimisation

Tertiary victimisation

Indirect victimisation

Victimology

Gender

Sex

Feminism

Crime victim

Masculinity

Gender-neutral

Gender-free

Gender myopia Gender-blindness

Gender-bias

Gender specificity

‘Doing-gender’

Doing-difference’

CHAPTER AIMS

• Outline the parameters and the major frames of reference for the book
• Specify the aims and objectives of the book
• Establish the benchmarks for exploring gender, crime and victimisation
• Introduce the key research, theory and policy agendas

Introduction

Students of criminology and related disciplines can now be pointed towards a growing body of authoritative texts that feature the word ‘gender’ in their titles. Words in addition to gender such as crime, criminal justice, violence and imprisonment are connected in titles belonging to several of the more ‘criminologically’ focussed publications. The title and content of this book is therefore original and different from any of these in that it connects the word gender to both of the additional words, crime and victimisation. The latter constitute the two major frames of reference for this book’s gendered journey.

Within one frame of reference, gender − and crime a detailed examination of gender patterns to offending and more broadly to the committing of crime are examined. How these patterns are variously established and represented, researched, explained, theorised and responded to by policy makers and criminal justice intervention methods are all examined through a gendered lens. Within the other frame of reference, gender − and victimisation is a detailed examination of gender patterns to victimisation including criminal victimisation, primary, tertiary and indirect victimisation and other forms of social harm. How these patternings of victimisations in society are variously established and represented, researched, explained, theorised and responded to by policy makers, criminal justice and other intervention strategies and support networks are simultaneously examined through a gendered lens. Using these two major frames of reference, which are given roughly equal weight, this book explores a comprehensive range of gender issues in the study of crime and victimisation.

The remainder of this introductory chapter outlines the scope, aims and objectives of this book. It includes a preliminary discussion on the gender agenda to crime and victimisation drawing on key developments within the discipline of criminology and its sub-discipline victimology. It justifies why gender is central to this book’s content and it outlines a number of gendered themes and threads that are prioritised within its pages. It is initially important to clarify what is meant by gender as there is confusion evident in some criminological and victimological literature. This clarification of meaning is best achieved by reference to what gender does not mean as well as what it does mean.

The most appropriate way to explain how gender is commonly used throughout this book is to refer to it as a sociological term where there is specific distinction between sex and gender. The word gender is sometimes inappropriately used as a substitute for the word sex and this changes the original meaning. To clarify the sex/gender confusion Walklate’s observation is useful: ‘sex differences, i.e. differences that can be observed between the biological categories, male and female: they are not necessarily a product of gender. Gender differences are those that result from the socially ascribed roles of being male or being female, i.e. masculinity and femininity’ (Walklate, 2004: 94).

When teaching these terms the following simple schema helps not only clarify but also complicate our understanding of gender:

SEX	GENDER
Male/Female	Masculine/Feminine

This simple schema raises oppositional associations of male/female and of masculine and feminine. These are often referred to as ‘gender dichotomies’ and a number of these are illustrated later in this introductory chapter.

Glossary

Above you will have noted how some words/terms/concepts – for example ‘primary’, ‘tertiary’ and ‘indirect victimisation’, ‘victimology’ and ‘gender’, have been highlighted in bold. When you see emboldened terms like this you should refer to the comprehensive glossary at the end of the book. There these terms are listed in alphabetical order and a succinct meaning of each is provided.

The scope of this book

This book will challenge and equip a range of readers including undergraduate, postgraduate, PhD students and other academic scholars and researchers as well as crime and justice sector workers, policy makers, crime journalists and other critical commentators to understand more comprehensively and to debate critically gender issues in the study of crime and victimisation. The book brings together research issues, theoretical developments and policy matters connected to the study of gender, crime and victimisation in a clearly sign-posted and uniquely structured way. It adopts a broadly historical approach to this project of combining academic and mediated knowledges and perspectives on the study of criminology with those of victimology. It draws particularly on the influences of feminism and on the author’s experiences of teaching, researching and writing within the fields of crime and criminology and on the subject of the crime victim and victimology. A case study, entitled ‘Women and Crime for Economic Gain’, was concerned with critically examining women’s motives for doing economic crime, forms a key point of reference, exemplification and illustration throughout this book. The aims of the particular research study which is referred to here as the main case study are briefly outlined later in this introductory chapter.

The broad aim of this book then, is to offer a detailed critical appreciation of how crime is a gendered phenomenon, how crime and risks to criminal victimisation and other forms of harm can be known about more fully and how gender impacts upon and influences the experiences and recovery from crime and victimisation in society. The book explores the changing understandings of femininity and masculinity through an examination of offending, the committing of crime more broadly and experiences of victimisation in society. It focuses on the importance of gender in part by drawing attention to areas of scholarship and practice where the woman and/or man in question is absent. Thus gender neutrality and gender myopia as well as gender bias are all considered within a broader appreciation of the social constructions of deviance, crime and offending, victimisation and social harm. This focus upon a gender/crime/victimisation nexus is original and this book represents one of the first efforts to do this. In this way the book will consolidate the knowledges that inform the gender agenda to crime and victimisation in society, yet it will explore more fully, explain, illustrate, exemplify, debate and critically analyse these knowledges, in its ambition to be innovative and forward looking with its arguments. As part of this task the book aims to explore and explain how a gendered approach variously informs understanding of each of the following –

• definitions of: deviance, crime, offending, criminal victimisation, social harm;
• patterns to: crime, types of crimes, offending, criminal victimisation and social harm;
• the above as socially and unequally distributed;
• processes of criminalisation and social control and their structural (gender) biases;
• visible and invisible: crimes, types of crimes, offending, criminal victimisation and social harm;
• the above as ‘locationally’ biased;
• fears, anxieties, worry and concern about: crimes, types of crimes, offending, criminal victimisation and social harm;
• risks to crime, criminal victimisation and social harm;
• the above as socially and unequally visited;
• crime prevention, community safety and control strategies and their structural (gender) biases;
• state, voluntary and other responses to populations experiencing criminal victimisation and social harm;
• familial, local, community, regional, national, international and global responses to crime, disorder, deviance and offending, criminal victimisation and social harm.

In order to ensure that all of the above are catered for within the pages of this book, a particular way of organising the contents has been devised. As you will have noted from the contents pages each chapter is clearly labelled. The contents allow us to explore:

• various mediated knowledges of the crime and victimisation problems in society;
• feminist influences and contributions to criminological and victimological ideologies, theoretical inquiry and policy making agendas;
• men’s, and women’s committing of volume crimes and violences;
• men’s, and women’s risks of experiencing of criminal victimisation and other harms;
• the feminist movement, state and voluntary sector responses to offending and the committing of crime;
• the feminist movement, state and voluntary sector responses to victimisation and harm in society.

The approach that is adopted throughout the book is one which is supported by a range of pedagogic features. These are explained in more detail later in this chapter. However, the main vehicle for exemplification and illustration is that of the case study. In the main this is used to demonstrate the practical element of key theoretical debates. One main case study is drawn upon – see below – and a whole variety of other mini-case studies are also offered to encourage the reader to engage in critical reflection of the issues under discussion and to facilitate this approach as an original method of research amongst potential researchers in this field. Alongside these illustrations the type of reflective critique that is offered incorporates the following:

1. a historical and contemporary approach to reviewing research and theoretical developments;
2. a historical and contemporary approach to reviewing policy and practice issues;
3. combining and contrasting perspectives on the study of criminology with those of victimology;
4. drawing especially on the influences of feminisms and the ‘woman question’ and later developments around masculinities and the ‘man question’;
5. drawing on the author’s experiences of doing original fieldwork;
6. exemplification, illustration and evidencing all of the above.

The scope of the book is designed to help shape and construct a gender agenda for the future which is more fully appreciative and understanding of the nature, extent, distribution and experiences of crime and victimisation in society. It is simultaneously designed to facilitate the reader with material relevant to help inform scholarly and robust criminological and victimological opinion on the relative salience of gender. In terms of gender specific matters the key foci for the book are made explicit from the outset and for clarity they are simply listed below. The explanation and exemplification is left for us to explore in detail in Chapters 2−8.

Key foci for the book

• the framing of maleness and femaleness as related to knowledges about crime and victimisation in society;
• gender related ambiguities and conundrums about crime and victimisation;
• feminist inspired research and knowledges as a spur to improved gendered research and knowledges around crime and victimisation;
• to use the above to critique other scholarly and mediated knowledges as well as social and public policy around crime and victimisation;
• gender alongside other salient ‘power’ issues connected to crime and victimisation, in particular, the relevance of gender-class intersections;
• feminist, critical and masculinities scholarship abilities to confront current and emerging dilemmas and challenges around (gendered) offending, crime and victimisation.

The next section begins to address the fundamental question, ‘Does gender deserve priority?’ In the context of social division, multiple ide...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Boxes
• Acknowledgements
• 1 The gender agenda to crime and victimisation
• 2 Gender patterns to crime and victimisation
• 3 Mediated gender, crime and victimisation
• 4 Feminism, ideologies and research
• 5 Feminist and gendered perspectives: explaining and theorising offending and victimisation
• 6 Feminist and gendered perspectives: on fear, risk and vulnerability to victimisation
• 7 Gender and the criminal justice system: responses to lawbreakers
• 8 Gender and responses to victimisation
• 9 Challenges to understanding crime and victimisation through gender
• Glossary
• References
• Index