Do Men Really Commit More Crime Than Women?

The chivalry thesis argues that official crime statistics under-represent female offending because:

• Women commit as much crime as men but are treated more leniently, so many offences go unrecorded

• Women are biologically less inclined to crime than men

• Men commit all violent crime, women only minor offences

• Police keep women’s crimes in a separate, unpublished database

Police often see female suspects as “sad rather than bad” and therefore tend to:

• Issue on-the-spot fines

• Offer counselling or support instead of harsh punishment

• Place them under constant surveillance

• Send every case straight to Crown Court

Oxford student Lavinia Woodward avoided prison after stabbing her boyfriend. This case is used to show that:

• Women receive harsher sentences for violence

• Upper-class offenders are always jailed

• Lenient sentencing of female offenders can occur even for serious crimes

• University students offend more than non-students

In the notes, a “ladette” is:

• A woman working in the legal profession

• A female victim of violent crime

• A single mother juggling multiple jobs

• A young woman who binge-drinks, swears and engages in street violence like some men

Feminists say women who offend face “double deviance,” meaning they are condemned because:

• They have broken the law and violated expectations of respectable femininity

• They experience a strain gap seeking material success

• They join gangs for status frustration

• They accept a secondary criminal label

In sexual-assault trials, questions about a victim’s clothing, drinking or sexual history often:

• Increase conviction rates

• Make juries doubt the victim and discourage future reporting

• Guarantee longer sentences for rapists

• Speed up proceedings

Supporters of the chivalry thesis say women sometimes avoid arrest because:

• Female crimes leave more evidence

• Women confess less readily

• They usually offend in large groups

• Police are less likely to suspect or detain women in the first place

Rising binge-drinking and violence among young women is presented as evidence that:

• Female behaviour is converging with male behaviour in terms of risk-taking and crime

• Men are becoming more law-abiding

• Violent crime is declining overall

• Social media encourages female activism

Courts that remove children from female offenders deemed “unsuitable mothers” illustrate that the justice system can:

• Demonstrate protective concern for families

• Punish women for breaching gender expectations, contradicting the chivalry thesis

• Apply child-care expertise in trials

• Reduce prison overcrowding

Feminists argue some women do not report sexual offences chiefly because they:

• Assume police cannot solve crimes

• Fear reprisals from offenders

• Expect to be disbelieved or blamed owing to courtroom treatment

• Want to protect male partners from jail