NCJ Number
84236
Date Published
1981
Length
23 pages
Annotation
Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and self-report data suggest that female participants in serious crime will continue to increase but have no numerical significance in the near future, and there is no indication that female emancipation is a causative factor in this increase.
Abstract
Data on male and female arrest patterns for 1960-75 and 1965-77 suggest that juvenile females will continue to become increasingly involved in violent and property offenses, although still with major gaps between their participation and that of juvenile males. In the case of larceny, however, female arrests will probably account for between 35 and 40 percent of total arrests by the year 2000. With respect to adult female crime, the increase has been more apparent than real. The large percentage gains indicated in the index and in other offenses have largely resulted from the relatively small size of the initial female base. The self-reporting data show a closer convergence between male-female participation in delinquency than UCR data; however, these two data sets are not entirely isomorphic, which makes comparisons questionable. Early individualistic explanations of female crime tended to be based on stereotypical assumptions which confused sex-related biological differences with gender-based cultural differences. Recent research efforts that have focused on social-background variables appear to recognize the role played by culturally based values in influencing factors that may explain female crime. Interviews with female offenders do not indicate connections between their offenses and a philosophy of female emancipation. Tabular data and 85 notes are provided. (Author summary modified)