NCJ Number
174654
Journal
Fordham Urban Law Journal Volume: 20 Issue: 3 Dated: Spring 1993 Pages: 401-417
Date Published
1997
Length
17 pages
Annotation
This essay analyzes the developing role of women in violent street crime and poses a model, based on both historical analysis and empirical research, to explain the participation of women in violent street crime in the 1980s.
Abstract
Part II of this article discusses some of the trends in inner-city women's participation in violent street crime by using New York City as a case study. Police and court data were used to determine some of the trends and patterns of women's involvement in violent street crime. Arrest counts by crime type were obtained for the years 1987-1990 in New York City. The data on arrests for murder/manslaughter, robbery, aggravated assault, and burglary were aggregated from raw data made available by the New York City Police Department in the form of arrest counts by crime type, race and age subgroups, and year (1987-90). Additional data came from the arraignment calendars and official court records of 266 women arrested and charged for a violent felony in Manhattan from January through June 1990. Preliminary findings indicate that the concentration of poverty is associated positively with the level of criminal activity. The mean number of official arrests for robbery, assault, burglary, and total violent felonies were significantly higher for women from high- concentration-of-poverty neighborhoods than for their counterparts in the two other neighborhood subgroups. Part II of the article presents a model for understanding the social ecology of women's participation in violent street crime. Elements of the model are economic and social dislocation, the growth of drug markets, the changing composition of the inner city, and situational factors related to women's pathways into violent street crime. Part IV concludes with a consideration of some of the implications of the ideas presented in this paper for the criminal justice system, with attention to the ineffectiveness of harsh sentences for drug offenses and the importance of addressing social and economic factors related to the perpetuation of a violent drug subculture in the inner city. 69 footnotes