NCJ Number
120598
Journal
Criminology Volume: 27 Issue: 4 Dated: (November 1989) Pages: 605-631
Date Published
1989
Length
27 pages
Annotation
Feminist research has expanded beyond its origins in women's studies and has influenced other disciplines like criminology, in which it has focused extensively on female offenders, female victims, and criminal justice processing of female offenders.
Abstract
Feminism is not a single theory, however. Its diverse perspectives and agendas each rest on different definitions of the problem, on competing views of the origins and mechanisms of gender inequality and oppression, and on divergent strategies for its eradication. The more liberal feminist approaches to the study of crime and justice correspond closely to the ideas and beliefs of most capitalist democracies and have been the dominant approaches. More radical critiques have emerged recently, however. Future feminist research needs to focus on such issues as race and crime, white-collar crime, and deterrence. It also needs to better address the complexities of criminal offending so that its critics will not dismiss it as facile, rhetorical, or lacking a theoretical base. 144 references.