gender and crime essay sociology

Gender, Race, and Crime: The Evolution of a Feminist Research Agenda

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• Kenly Brown 5 &
• Nikki Jones 5  

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Over the last several decades, feminist scholars have advanced our understanding of the relationship between race, gender and crime. This body of work illustrates how gender inequality makes women more vulnerable to incarceration and punishment. Feminist criminologists who examine crime and victimization through the lens of intersectionality, especially women of color, have also worked to shift the scholarly focus from intersections of gender, race, and crime, which often focus on offending, to a consideration of the intersection of gender, race, and justice , which critically interrogates not only disparities in the distribution of justice, but also the ways that structural violence shapes the vulnerability of women of color to various forms of violence and punitive sanctions. New research and theorizations in this area, including Black feminist and intersectional research and writings, encourage us to move beyond gender binaries to examine the interrelationship between institutions (e.g., police, prisons, etc.) and gendered vulnerabilities to punishment and violence.

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Kimberlé Crenshaw’s “Mapping the Margins” pioneered a critical and intersectional examination of race, gender, and violence against women. She argues how violence against women is racialized and gendered through structural, political, and representational contexts.

At the American Sociological Association conference of 2016, a plenary session on Lives “Protesting Racism” was given on the ascension of the Black Matter Movement and public awareness on police brutality and racism. The panel included Kimberlé Crenshaw, Black feminist legal scholar, Charlene Carruthers, the national director of the Black Youth Project, and Mariam Kaba, founding director of Project Nia. The panel centered on their work to address, illuminate, and disrupt the violence inflicted by the state and suggested resolutions to alleviate the brutal and inhumane treatment of the Black community in the United States.

Intersectional vulnerabilities speaks to what Dana Britton ( 2000 ) argued feminist criminology needs to rethink the significance of the state, “Finally, one of the most important issues facing activists in the discipline during the coming years will undoubtedly lie in rethinking feminist criminology’s relationship with the state. Those working on issues connected to women offenders have already recognized the perils of the liberal strategy of strict legal equality. Such policies, when imposed in an already unequal and gendered context, have almost invariably disadvantaged women” (73).

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Brown, K., Jones, N. (2018). Gender, Race, and Crime: The Evolution of a Feminist Research Agenda. In: Risman, B., Froyum, C., Scarborough, W. (eds) Handbook of the Sociology of Gender. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76333-0_32

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Gender and Crime

Introduction, introductory works.

• General Overviews
• Historical Context
• Gender Differences in Crime
• Gendered Crime Pathways
• Gender and Desistance
• Gendered Crime Rates: Convergence or Divergence
• Early Feminist Critiques of Criminological Theory
• Criminological Theory and Gender
• Victimization
• Debates and Controversies

Related Articles Expand or collapse the "related articles" section about

About related articles close popup.

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• Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children
• Corporate Crime
• Criminological Perspectives on Intimate Partner Violence
• Delinquency and Crime Prevention
• Family Violence
• Feminist Theories
• Feminist Victimization Theories
• LGBTQ Intimate Partner Violence
• Prostitution
• Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice
• Rape and Sexual Assault
• School Bullying
• Victimization Patterns and Trends
• Violence Against Women
• Women and White-Collar Crime
• Women, Girls, and Reentry

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Gender and Crime by Sally S. Simpson LAST REVIEWED: 14 December 2009 LAST MODIFIED: 14 December 2009 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195396607-0052

In Western cultures, gender and crime, as a subject of intellectual curiosity, did not gain much attention until the late 1960s and the 1970s. Previously, female offenders were an object of curiosity, often understood and treated as an aberration to their sex. As a consequence of the women’s movement, female offenders and, in particular, female victims of male violence, moved front-and-center in the field of criminology. Feminists played a key role in this emergence, launching critical assessments of the field’s neglect, both in terms of empirical research and theoretical developments. These efforts produced a solid body of scholarship that led nonfeminist researchers to acknowledge that gender is a critical factor (some argue “the” critical variable) that distinguishes who participates in crime and who does not. Over time, scholarship shifted away from “women” as a category in favor of intersectional approaches (i.e., gender, race, class, ethnicity, and sexuality), a focus on gender differences, and postmodern theorizing (e.g., discourse analysis, rejection of structure, sexed bodies). Nonetheless, debates about how best to study gender (positivism versus other epistemological approaches), whether males and females have distinct pathways into crime (including violence and the potential link between early victimization and the risk of later criminality and victimization), and the impact of crime prevention policies such as mandatory arrest on female victims remain unresolved.

The field of criminology and criminal justice, like that of other social science disciplines, has been dramatically affected by ideas and challenges brought about by the women’s movement. Scholars classify these influences in terms of “waves” linked to women’s suffrage (first wave), the social movements of the 1960s (second wave), and dissentions and discord within the movement itself (third wave). Distinct types of research are closely associated with these broad historical categories. Contemporary research, beginning in the second wave, emphasized women as research and theoretical subjects ( Heidensohn 1968 ) out of which two distinct conceptualizations emerged ( Daly and Maher 1998 ): real women (women offenders and victims as active agents in their own lives) and women of discourse (the ways in which women are constructed as discursive subjects—see Smart 1992 ). During the third wave, scholars adopted a more heterogeneous perspective by recognizing intersectional differences ( Burgess-Proctor 2006 ) and “gendered” relations ( Heimer and Kruttschnitt 2006 ).

Burgess-Proctor, Amanda. 2006. Intersections of race, class, gender, and crime: Future directions for feminist criminology. Feminist Criminology 1.1: 27–47.

DOI: 10.1177/1557085105282899

Reviews the emergence and importance of “multiracial” feminist criminology, especially with regard to theoretical, methodological, and praxis-related developments.

Daly, Kathleen, and Lisa Maher, eds. 1998. Criminology at the crossroads: Feminist readings in crime and justice . New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Multifaceted compilation of feminist work organized around emergent themes, including discourse analysis, victimization and criminalization, masculinities and violence, and gender, politics, and justice. A helpful introductory chapter by Daly and Maher navigates the history of feminist criminology.

Heidensohn, Frances. 1968. The deviance of women: A critique and an enquiry. British Journal of Sociology 19.2: 160–175.

DOI: 10.2307/588692

In this classic article, Heidensohn assesses the absence of women from studies of deviance and challenges scholars to study female deviance “as an aspect of the female sex role and its relationship to the social structure.”

Heimer, Karen, and Candace Kruttschnitt, eds. 2006. Gender and crime: Patterns of victimization and offending . New York: New York Univ. Press.

A collection of original empirical and conceptual papers that address some of the current gaps in the gender and crime/victimization literature. Compares feminist constructs with more traditional criminological approaches and integrates criminological knowledge about victimization more generally into violence against women specifically. Examines the role of agency in offending, the link between offending and victimization, and the debate surrounding quantitative versus qualitative approaches to knowledge. Also includes cross-national comparisons. Appropriate for graduate students and academics.

Smart, Carol. 1992. The woman of legal discourse. Social and Legal Studies 1.1:29–44.

DOI: 10.1177/096466399200100103

Explores the ways in which law is gendered, how law is a gendering strategy, and the challenges faced by feminist socio-legal studies. Uses examples from Great Britain.

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For example, men are more likely to commit crimes than women in general (although there’s been a change in the numbers since the late twentieth century). Men are also more likely to commit violent crimes, such as murder.

In this explanation, we will be looking at gender and crime in sociology . We'll cover:

• The relationship between gender and crime

Gender differences in crime statistics

• Theories of gender and crime in sociology
• Major research topics in gender and crime
• Evaluations of gender and crime theories

The relationship between gender and crime in sociology

• To understand the link between gender and crime , sociology offers different theories explaining gendered differences in offending.

Before we dive into them, let's examine some statistics on gender and crime patterns.

If we look at the figures from the Ministry of Justice's 2019 report on Women and the Criminal Justice System , it is clear that women still commit fewer crimes, and less dangerous crimes, than men. 3

Out of approximately equal numbers of men and women in the population, 85% of the people arrested were men.

About 75% of those charged with criminal activities and 95% of prisoners were also men, which means that 5% of the total prison population are women.

Statistics show that 85-90% of male criminals commit serious crimes, e.g. violence and robbery, and 98% of sexual offenders are men while only 2% are women.

Summary non-motoring and fraud offences were somewhat balanced in terms of gender.

Gender and crime theories in sociology

There are several sociological theories on the relationship between gender and crime. These include:

The sex-role theory

Biological theories

Feminist perspectives

The liberation thesis

The sex-role theory argues that gendered differences in crime rates result from differences in gender roles, identities, and processes of socialisation .

Followers of this perspective believe that the traditional values and norms associated with femininity discourage criminal activity and behaviour in women. However, the values and behaviours associated with masculinity are conducive to crime amongst men.

Femininity and low crime rates

According to Talcott Parsons (1937) , women traditionally perform the ‘ expressive role ’ in their families, including raising children and taking care of their husbands' emotional needs. As a result, girls grow up internalising values such as being caring and empathetic, which reduces their likelihood of causing harm to others or committing crimes.

Parsons also argues that women get more attached to their families and wider communities in carrying out the expressive role. They are more likely to keep in touch with relatives, friends, etc. This effectively broadens and strengthens their community bonds . Thus, women are less likely to commit crimes due to their attachments to others in broader society.

Additionally, due to traditional gender roles and expectations, in recent decades, women have taken up a ‘ dual burden ’ or ‘ second shift ’ of working while also being responsible for housework and childcare. This keeps them busier than men, reducing opportunities to engage in criminal activity.

Masculinity and high crime rates

During the early stages of socialisation , boys familiarise themselves with traditional masculine roles and identities that are partially responsible for the high crime rates among adult men.

American sociologist Edwin H. Sutherland (1960) suggests that the tendency to teach boys to be 'rough and tough' makes it more likely for them to engage in delinquent behaviour.

Sutherland claims that ever since masculine roles and values started to be ingrained in boys during adolescence , they engaged in more rebellious and unruly behaviour than girls. Similarly, young boys in gangs learn necessary traits of strong masculine identity, e.g. dominance and toughness, from other adult male members ( Cloward and Ohlin, 1960).

Gender and crime: feminist perspectives

There are two main strands of feminist theory concerning gender and crime: marginalisation and control theory .

Gender and crime: marginalisation

Some feminist sociologists assert that the marginal position of women in patriarchal societies is the primary reason men commit more crimes.

The marginalisation thesis suggests that men are not limited to domestic roles and duties and therefore have greater opportunities to commit occupational crimes or form criminal subcultures.

Gender and crime: control theory

Another explanation for gendered differences in offending is based on the idea that women are more controlled than men.

Conventional gender roles and behaviours imprinted during socialisation have given men more personal freedoms than women - men can stay outdoors for later hours, not be under strict supervision, etc.

In Frances Heidensohn’s (1985) view, women are controlled by their fathers and relatives as young girls and later by their husbands once they get married. The corresponding lack of supervision or control by authoritative figures in the case of men could therefore be responsible for their high levels of delinquent and/or criminal behaviour.

Pat Carlen argued that the class and gender deal combine and keep working-class women under control .

Class deal: working-class women would work hard in exchange for money which was then used to pay for consumer products and services.

Gender deal: women only engage in domestic labour - taking care of the needs of their husband, household, and family - and receive affection, love and financial support in return.

These deals kept working-class women respectable, and as suggested by Carlen , women committed crimes as a rational choice when these deals would break. As a feminist, Carlen believed that women were exploited in both areas - within families as well as by their employers in the capitalist structure.

Gender and crime: the liberation thesis

According to Freda Adler (1975) , increased freedom and growing economic opportunities for women have resulted in higher female crime rates. She argues that as women achieve similar social standings and employment patterns as men, they start to resemble men's criminal behaviours as well.

Adler based this theory on a cross-national correlation between the levels of women’s economic liberties and their crime rates.

Gender and crime: biological theories

Biological explanations focus on the biological differences between men and women to explain the differences in crime rates.

Men have higher testosterone levels than women, meaning that they are more likely to display aggression. This is why men tend to engage more in aggressive and/or criminal behaviour.

Gender and crime: the chivalry thesis

While crime statistics show that men commit higher crime levels than women, some sociologists claim that statistical data does not reflect reality. This is because most male law enforcement officers tend to protect women from the criminal justice system out of a gentlemanly attitude known as the chivalry thesis .

This theory may seem somewhat fanciful, but it can be explained by gender roles and expectations . Letting off a person who has perpetrated a crime simply because they are a woman indicates that men’s ‘chivalrous’ approach rests on the belief that women are incapable of criminal behaviour. As they are considered emotionally or physically weak, women's crimes are taken less seriously .

Therefore both society and the criminal justice system may underestimate women's criminality and let them go rather than punishing them.

Otto Pollack argued women get away with committing as many crimes as men as they lie better. He further adds that this is natural to women as they learn the act of deceiving for reasons such as hiding menstruation and faking orgasms.

When regarding Pollack's argument, it is important to remember that accusing women of being more deceptive than men with no proof can be viewed as sexist .

Gender and crime: research topics

James Dabbs and Robin Morris conducted research in 1990 on the relationship between testosterone levels and antisocial behaviour. He studied over 4400 men and found that men with high testosterone levels tended to have issues with substance abuse, delinquency, etc. 1

These men were also more likely to have multiple sexual partners, troubled relationships with authority figures such as teachers, and were more vulnerable to using hard drugs. This was exacerbated by factors such as inadequate education and low incomes.

Another study by Dabbs et al. (1995) on young male prison occupants found that men with high testosterone levels engaged more in violent crimes, violated prison rules, and so on. 2 Even in women prisoners, Dabbs et al. found that elevated testosterone was related to unprovoked violence, decisions against parole, etc.

Evaluation of gender and crime theories

Stephen Jones (2008) disagrees with the liberation thesis and counters that women in prison were mostly suspects who were forced into criminal activities because of a controlling man due to patriarchal control .

Critical of "malestream" theories on gender and crime, Carol Smart points out that feminists need to develop a transgressive approach toward criminology and focus on what is harmful to women regardless of whether it is illegal or not. Theories of crime and deviance are generally based on men's interests, conditions, circumstances, etc. Therefore, we cannot expect them to carry the answers to women's issues.

Liberal feminists would diverge from the other feminist theories on gender and crime and consider them outdated, arguing that women in contemporary societies have achieved much more equality.

The number of female workers has comparatively increased in the criminal justice system. However, judges are primarily male.

Female crime is often considered 'doubly deviant'.

The concept of double deviance refers to the fact that women are treated more harshly than men for committing crimes - first, for breaking social norms and expectations of how women should behave, and secondly, for breaking the legal rule/law.

Gender and Crime: A Human Rights Approach

In Gender and Crime: A Human Rights Approach (2016), Marisa Silvestri and Chris Crowther-Dowey look at gender and crime issues through a human rights framework. The authors cover the fundamental problems with gender discrimination in the criminal justice system and argue for the recognition of the human rights of every person in the CJS.

Gender and Crime - Key takeaways

• Men and women commit crimes that are different in number as well as in nature.
• If we look at the figures from the Ministry of Justice's 2019 report on Women and the Criminal Justice System , it is clear that women still commit fewer crimes, and less dangerous crimes, than men.

The chivalry thesis

• There are a number of evaluations of gender and crime theories from different sociologists and feminists.
• Dabbs, J. M., & Morris, R. (1990). Testosterone, Social Class, and Antisocial Behavior in a Sample of 4,462 Men. Psychological Science, 1(3), 209–211. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1990.tb00200.x
• Dabbs, J. M.; Carr, T.S.; Frady, R. L.; Riad, J. K. (1995). Testosterone, crime, and misbehavior among 692 male prison inmates. Personality and Individual Differences, 18(5). https://doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(94)00177-T.
• Ministry of Justice. (2020). Women and the Criminal Justice System 2019. GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/women-and-the-criminal-justice-system-2019

Flashcards inGender and Crime 20

What is the sex-role theory?

According to Parsons, why are women less likely to commit crimes?

Talcott  Parsons (1937) argues that  women traditionally perform the ‘ expressive role ’ in their families, including raising children and taking care of their husbands' emotional needs. As a result, girls grow up internalising values such as being   caring   and   empathetic,  which reduces their likelihood of causing harm to others or committing crimes. 

Fill in the blanks: Parsons also argues that women get more attached to their families and wider communities in carrying out the expressive role. They are more likely to keep in touch with relatives, friends, etc. This effectively broadens and strengthens their ____ ____. Thus, women are less likely to commit crimes due to their ____ to others in broader society. 

Community bonds, attachments .

Which sociologist suggests that the tendency to teach boys to be 'rough and tough' makes it more likely for them to engage in delinquent behaviour?

Edwin H. Sutherland (1960).

Describe the 'dual burden' or 'second shift'.

In recent decades, women have taken up a ‘ dual burden ’ or ‘ second shift ’ of working while also being responsible for housework and childcare. This keeps them busier than men, reducing opportunities to engage in criminal activity. 

What is the marginalisation theory of gender and crime?

Some feminist sociologists assert that the   marginal position   of women in patriarchal societies is the primary reason men commit more crimes. 

The marginalisation thesis suggests that men are not limited to domestic roles and duties and therefore have   greater opportunities   to commit occupational crimes or form criminal subcultures.

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Frequently Asked Questions about Gender and Crime

What is the relationship between gender and crime?

To understand the link between gender and crime, sociology offers different theories explaining gendered differences in offending.

What influence does gender have on crime rates?

Men and women commit different types of crimes at different rates. For example, men are more likely to commit crimes than women in general (although there’s been a change in the numbers since the late 20th century). Men are also more likely to commit violent crimes such as murder.

How are gender and sexuality linked to crime and deviance?

An individual's gender, as well as their sexuality, can affect their likelihood of committing crimes/what crimes they commit.

Does age, race and gender affect youth crimes?

Age, race, and gender can all affect rates of youth crime.

What does gendered crime mean? 

A gendered crime is a crime committed against a person solely because of their gender/the roles and characteristics associated with their gender. It can also refer to crimes that predominantly affect a specific gender.

Test your knowledge with multiple choice flashcards

Which sociologist suggests that the tendency to teach boys to be 'rough and tough' makes it more likely for them to engage in delinquent behaviour?

Heidensohn’s control theory argues that female crime is less common because women are controlled more than men.

What were the results of Dabbs et. al.'s research?

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Gender And Crime: Sociological perspective

Relevance: Sociology: Social stratification of class, status groups, gender, ethnicity and race

G.S paper I: Society and Social Issues 

Males commit much more crime than females. in one of survey, men comprise about 81 percent of all arrests for violent crime and about 63 percent of all arrests for property crime. Study says that males commit most of the violent crimes they experienced, and self-report studies find that males far outpace females in the commission of serious street offenses. When it comes to breaking the law, crime is a man’s world.

The key question is why such a large gender difference exists.

Some scholars attribute this difference to biological differences between the sexes, but most criminologists attribute it to sociological factors.

One of these is gender role socialization: Despite greater recognition of gender roles, we continue to raise our boys to be assertive and aggressive, while we raise our girls to be gentle and nurturing (Lindsey, 2011).

Such gender socialization has many effects, and one of these is a large gender difference in criminal behavior. A second factor is opportunity. Studies find that parents watch their daughters more closely than they watch their sons, who are allowed to stay out later at night and thus have more opportunity to break the law.

Age also makes a difference in criminal behavior: Offending rates are highest in the late teens and early twenties and decline thereafter. Accordingly, people in the 15–24 age range account for about 40 percent of all arrests even though they comprise only about 14 percent of the population.

Several factors again seem to account for this pattern (Shoemaker, 2010).

First, peer relationships matter more during this time of one’s life than later, and peers are also more likely during this period than later to be offenders themselves. For both reasons, our peer relationships during our teens and early twenties are more likely than those in our later years to draw us into crime. Second, adolescents and young adults are more likely than older adults to lack full-time jobs; for this reason, they are more likely to need money and thus to commit offenses to obtain money and other possessions.

Third, as we age out of our early twenties, our ties to conventional society increase: Many people marry, have children, and begin full-time employment, though not necessarily in that order.

These events and bonds increase our stakes in conformity, to use some social science jargon, and thus reduce our desire to break the law (Laub, Sampson, & Sweeten, 2006).

Social Class

Findings on social class differences in crime are less clear than they are for gender or age differences. Arrests statistics and much research indicate that poor people are much more likely than wealthier people to commit street crime.

However, some scholars attribute the greater arrests of poor people to social class bias against them. Despite this possibility, most criminologists would probably agree that social class differences in criminal offending are “unmistakable” (Harris & Shaw, 2000, p. 138).

Reflecting this conclusion, one sociologist has even noted, with tongue only partly in cheek, that social scientists know they should not “stroll the streets at night in certain parts of town or even to park there” and that areas of cities that frighten them are “not upper-income neighborhoods” (Stark, 1987, p. 894).

Thus social class does seem to be associated with street crime, with poor individuals doing more than their fair share.

Explanations of this relationship center on the effects of poverty, which, as the next section will discuss further, is said to produce anger, frustration, and economic need and to be associated with a need for respect and with poor parenting skills and other problems that make children more likely to commit antisocial behavior when they reach adolescence and beyond.

These effects combine to lead poor people to be more likely than wealthier people to commit street crime, even if it is true that most poor people do not commit street crime at all.

Although the poor are more likely than the wealthy to commit street crime, it is also true that the wealthy are much more likely than the poor to commit white-collar crime, which, as argued earlier, can be much more harmful than street crime.

If we consider both street crime and white-collar crime, then there does not appear to be a social class-crime relationship, since the poor have higher rates of the former and the wealthy have higher rates of the latter.

Urban versus Rural Residence

Where we live also makes a difference for our likelihood of committing crime. We saw earlier that big cities have a much higher homicide rate than small towns. This trend exists for violent crime and property crime more generally.

Urban areas have high crime rates in part because they are poor, but poverty by itself does not completely explain the urban-rural difference in crime, since many rural areas are poor as well. A key factor that explains the higher crime rates of urban areas is their greater population density (Stark 1987).

When many people live close together, they come into contact with one another more often. This fact means that teenagers and young adults have more peers to influence them to commit crime, and it also means that potential criminals have more targets (people and homes) for their criminal activity.

Urban areas also have many bars, convenience stores, and other businesses that can become targets for potential criminals, and bars, taverns, and other settings for drinking can obviously become settings where tempers flare and violence ensues.

Race and Ethnicity

In discussing who commits crime, any discussion of race and ethnicity is bound to arouse controversy because of the possibility of racial and ethnic stereotyping.

But if we can say that men and younger people have relatively high crime rates without necessarily sounding biased against individuals who are male or younger, then it should be possible to acknowledge that certain racial and ethnic groups have higher crime rates without sounding biased against them.

Keeping this in mind, race and ethnicity do seem to be related to criminal offending. In particular, much research finds that African Americans and Latinos have higher rates of street crime than non-Latino whites.

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A level sociology revision – education, families, research methods, crime and deviance and more!

Crime and Deviance

Table of Contents

Last Updated on November 14, 2023 by Karl Thompson

This page provides links to blog posts on the main topics of the AQA’s Crime and Deviance module. It includes links to posts on sociological perspectives on crime (Functionalism, strain theory etc); crime control and punishment, including surveillance; the relationship between class, gender, ethnicity and crime; and globalisation, state and green crime (everyone’s favourite!). 

Introductory Material

Sociological Perspectives on the London Riots – The London Riots remain the biggest act of mass criminality of the 2000s, I like to use them to introduce sociological perspectives on crime and deviance. You can also use this as an example of how media narratives on the causes of the riots differ so much from the London School of Economics research findings on the actual ’causes’ of the riots.

Perspectives on Crime and Deviance – A Very Brief Overview –  A summary grid of 21 theorists, their ‘key points’, their ‘perspective’ and an evaluation. If you like you can cut and paste, cut it up and use it as a sentence sort!

Key Concepts for A Level Sociology Crime and Deviance – definitions of most of the key concepts relevant to crime and deviance within A-level sociology. 

Hints on how to answer the AQA’s Sociology Crime and Deviance with Theory and Methods exam paper – in case you need to know how you’re assessed (only covers the crime and deviance material).

The social construction of crime – a timeline of some relatively recent events that have been criminalised due to changes in the law – once they weren’t criminal, now they are! (U.K. focus).

Consensus Theories of Crime and Deviance

The Functionalist Perspective on Crime and Deviance  – class notes covering Durkhiem’s ‘society of saints’ (the inevitability of crime), and his views on the positive functions of crime – social integration, social regulation and allowing for social change.

Hirschi’s Social Control Theory of Crime  – class notes covering Hirschi’s four bonds of attachment – attachment, commitment, involvement and belief. 

Robert Merton’s Strain Theory  – class notes: the easy summary of Merton’s strain theory is that people who try to succeed by normal means (getting a job for example) and fail turn to crime in oder to achieve what they couldn’t through normal means. 

Functionalism and Strain Theories of Crime – summary revision notes – a briefer version of the three posts above. 

Subcultural Theories of Deviance – class notes on mainly Albert Cohen’s consensus theory of status frustration, but also with details of other subcultural theories (e.g. Willis). 

Subcultural Theories of Crime – summary revision version of the above. 

The Underclass Theory of Crime – brief class notes covering Charle’s Murray’s theory of the underclass. Murray argues the long term unemployed get cut off over the generations and socialise their kids into a culture of worklesseness and criminality. 

Marxist Theories of Crime and Deviance

The Marxist Perspective on Crime – very detailed class notes covering concepts such as crimogenic capitalism, the costs of corporate crime and the ideological functions of selective law enforcement. 

The Marxist Perspective on Crime – summary revision notes of the above. 

Evaluating the Marxist Perspective on Crime – evaluative posts, mostly links to research which supports the Marxist perspective on crime. 

Assess the Contribution of Marxism to our Understanding of Crime and Deviance – an  outline 30 mark essay plan. 

Interactionist Theories of Crime and Deviance

The Labelling Theory of Crime – very detailed class notes covering concepts such as labelling as applied to education and crime, the self fulfilling prophecy, Howard Becker’s Master Status, and Cicourel’s Negotiation of Justice. 

The Labelling Theory of Crime – brief summary notes of the above. 

Realist Theories of Crime and Deviance

Right Realist Criminology  – Includes an introduction to Realism and detailed class notes on Right Realism covering rational choice theory, broken windows theory, Charles Murray’s views on the underclass, situational crime prevention and environmental crime prevention (mainly zero tolerance policing)

Evaluating Broken Windows Theory – evaluative post. Wilson and Kelling’s Broken Windows Theory has been referred to as ‘the most influential theory of crime control’ of recent decades, this post offers some evaluations of this theory. (Spoiler Alert – it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny very well!) 

Environmental Crime Prevention – Definition and Examples  –  supplementary notes to Right Realism covering zero tolerance policing and ASBOs

Public Space Protection Orders and Criminal Behaviour Orders – supplementary notes to Right Realist policies of crime control 

Left Realist Criminology  –  class notes covering relative deprivation, marginalisation, subcultures, early intervention, community based solutions to crime and community policing

Post and Late Modern Theories of Crime and Deviance 

Post/ Late Modern Criminology – brief summary notes covering how crime has changed with shift to post modernity , which as resulted in society being more consumerist, more fragment and more globalized , as well as summaries of Jock Young and Cultural Criminology (covered in more detail below)

Jock Young – Late Modernity, Exclusion and Crime   – Jock Young argues that more people suffer from the ‘Vertigo of Late Modernity’ in late modern society. This is essentially a state of extreme anomie, and this is kind of an updated version of Strain Theory.

Cultural Criminology – Crime as Edgework  – argues that a lot of crime is done for thrill for of it today.

Foucault – Surveillance and Crime Control  – A very simplified explanation of Foucault, who argued that surveillance by agents of the state becomes more important for social control in modernity than the threat of physical punishment .

Synoptic Surveillance and Crime Control  – synoptic surveillance is surveillance from below rather than surveillance from above. In simple terms it means all of us watching each other rather than just the state watching citizens.

Actuarial Justice and Risk Management – this is statistical surveillance, a form of surveillance long used by insurance companies, but increasingly used by state agencies. It is where people who have a statistically higher risk of truanting/ offending/ failing will be under a higher level of surveillance than the norm.

Controlling and Reducing Crime – the Role of the Community, the Police and Different Forms of Punishment

Crime Prevention and Control Strategies – very brief summary revision notes on situational crime prevention, environmental crime prevention and community crime control strategies

The Role of the Community in Controlling and Reducing Crime – a summary of consensus, right realist, left realist and postmodern perspectives on the community in controlling crime

The Role of the Police in Controlling and Reducing Crime – right and left realists both tend to be on the side of the police, but right realists believe the police should be more ‘militaristic’, while left realists emphasise that they should work with communities and avoid being antagonistic. Marxists and interactionists tend to see the police as being ‘the problem’ and are more likely to side with the criminals.

Sociological Perspectives on Punishment – summary notes covering the Consensus, Marxist, interactionist, Realist and Postmodern views on punishment.

Does Prison Work?  – an evaluative post looking at some of the evidence on whether prison works to prevent crime. Spoiler alert: it generally doesn’t!

Social Class and Crime 

Social Class and Crime – detailed class notes covering the consensus view which tends to see most crime being committed by the working classes and the underclass, hence these classes are seen as part of the problem of crime; this is contrasted with mainly the Marxist view which sees all classes as committing crime, with agents of social control largely ignoring elite crime.

Outline and Analyse Two Ways in Which Patterns of Crime Vary by Social Class – 10 mark exam style question

See also the perspective links above, especially Marxism!

Ethnicity and Crime

Official Statistics on Ethnicity and Crime – Official statistics suggest that black people are around 6 times more likely to go to jail than white people, while Asians are 2-3 times more likely to go to jail . Of course there are limitations to these statistics!

Ethnicity and Crime – The Role of Cultural Factors – structural theorists focus on some of the background differences between ethnic groups. Pointing out, for example, that the high rates of absent fathers among British-Caribbean households may explain the higher rates of recorded offending by ‘black’ boys especially.

Left Realist Explanations for Ethnic Differences in Crime – left realists explain the higher rates of offending among certain ethnic groups as being due to higher rates of relative deprivation and marginalisation.

Neo-Marxist Approaches to Ethnicity and Crime – Applying the fully social theory of deviance to explaining the higher rates of black offending.

Paul Gilroy’s Anti-Racist Theory – summary notes on this classic text, taken from Haralambos.

Criminal Justice, Ethnicity and Racism – Selected Key Statistics –  evaluative post

Racism in the Criminal Justice System – Selected Evidence – there is A LOT of evidence that suggests the police are racist – the stop and search stats alone point to this, with black people being almost 30 times as likely to be stopped compared to white people in some circumstances. There is also more qualitative evidence based on Participant Observation which suggests this.

Ethnicity and Crime – Two examples of possible short answer 4 and 6 mark ‘outline’ questions.

Outline and Analyse Question on Police Racism – 10 mark exam question and answer – ‘Analyse two criticisms of the theory that police racism is the main factor which explains the higher imprisonment rates of ethnic minorities’

Gender and Crime 

Sex-Role Theory – suggests that women commit less crime than men because of their different roles in society, such as the motherhood role, which results in them being more constrained and more caring and responsible.

The Liberationist Perspective on the (Long Term) Increase in the Female Crime Rate –  This classic Liberal Feminist perspective argues that the female crime rate has increased in line with female liberation.

Globalisation, state and green crime

Globalisation, global criminal networks and crime – covering Misha Glenny’s work on the McMafia. He argues that the growth of the Mafia in ex-communist countries such as Bulgaria have been central to the growth of global crime – because they are perfectly located to ship illegal products such as drugs and sex-slaves from the global south to meet demand in the wealth global north.

Capitalism, Globalisation and Crime – A Marxist perspective on global crime covering global finance and tax havens and TNCs and law evasion. 

What is State Crime? – A simple explanation is that state crimes are crimes committed by governments, which are in breach of human rights. Historically the Nazi Genocide is the most obvious example.

Sociological perspectives on state crime – covering the different types of state crime and a slightly unusual take applying material from global development to analyse state crime.

Green crime and green criminology – revision notes covering primary and secondary green crime, Ulrich Beck’s Risk Society theory and Marxist views of Green Crime.

Victimology

Victimology – covering trends in victimisation, and positivist and critical victimology .

The Economic and Social Costs of Crime – a summary of a recent (2021) government report looking at the social and economic harms crime does in England and Wales .

What are the impacts of crime on victims ? – a post examining how crime affects individuals and their families, including a look at secondary victimisation.

The Media and Crime

How the Media Simplifies Crime – a brief post summarising how the media tends to take the side of the police and victims, focus on crimes with easy to understand individual ‘harm’ stories and provide a narrow analysis of crime control options .

Sensationalisation of Crime in the Media – There are a lot of fictional programmes about crime in the UK, many of them tend to present criminal characters as likeable and make the hideous crimes they commit (in fiction) seem ‘cool’ .

Moral Panics and The Media – brief class notes covering the definition of a moral panic, Stan Cohen’s work on the Mods and Rockers and some criticisms.

The Exaggeration of Violent and Sexual Crimes in the Media – The mainstream media exaggerates the extent of violent crime 10 times, tending to focus a lot more on very serious horrific crimes rather than less serious crimes which are much more common according to official statistics .

What is CyberCrime ? – A long form post examining crimes such as identify theft, online fraud, ransomware attacks and phishing scams.

Posts on Specific Types of Crime

How do we explain the recent surge in Knife Crime? – exploring this is a useful way to evaluate Right Realist theories of deviance especially.

Sociological Perspectives on Hate Crime – a very ‘postmodern’ type of crime, but some of the other sociological perspectives can also help us understand this crime.

How is Coronavirus affecting crime and deviance? – all of a sudden certain acts that used to be ‘normal’ are now criminal, this is perfect analytical feeding ground for any A-level sociology student!

Fraud and Computer Misuse – this seems to be one of the more common types of crime. Roughly one in five adults was a victim to the twelve months ending December 2020.

Crime and Deviance Revision Bundle for Sale

If you like this sort of thing then you might like my Crime and Deviance Revision Bundle.

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• 12 exam practice questions including short answer, 10 mark and essay question exemplars.
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Written specifically for the AQA sociology A-level specification.

A-level sociology revision mega bundle…

For better value I’ve bundled all of the above topics into six revision bundles , containing revision notes, mind maps, and exam question and answers, available for between £4.99 and £5.99 on Sellfy .

Best value is my A level sociology revision mega bundle – which contains the following:

• over 200 pages of revision notes
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• Covers the entire A-level sociology syllabus, AQA focus.

Crime and Deviance in Contemporary Society

Below are some selected, recent posts outlining how you might use contemporary examples to illustrate key concepts within crime and deviance. Examiners like this sort of contemporary focus!

How Coronavirus is changing crime – all of a sudden sitting on a park bench was illegal!

The deportation of foreign nationals – an example of a state crime? Outlines when the UK government tried to deport 42 criminals (in some cases ‘criminals’) back to Jamaica on their release from prison, despite the fact that some of them had been in the UK since they were children!

Contemporary examples of crime and deviance in the news – further examples from 2019 and 2018 which are relevant to A-level sociology.

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Sociological explanations for patterns of female crime

In this essay, I am going to address the sociological explanations for patterns of female crime. Crime has a negative impact in society. It refers to those activities that break the law of the land and are subject to official punishment. This essay will state why female crime is dramatically increasing throughout society. Additionally, whilst women commit less than men, they commit all types of offences. The explanations will be stated in this essay suggesting why and how they commit criminality.         

Female involvement in criminal activity is not restricted to a few areas. While females do not tend to commit crimes of violence (violence by females tends to occur within the family, mainly as a final response to male violence), they are involved in a wide cross-section of crime. Therefore, while, in theory, women have similar opportunities as men to commit crime these may be limited by other factors. Most theories that explain crime, implicitly accept that males are more likely than female to commit crime. However, the number of female offenders has risen faster than the number of male offenders since 1958. According to the social trends 2004. Marsh ("Sociology In Focus: Crime", 1986) concluded that in terms of the ratio of conviction between females and males, where women have similar opportunities for criminal behaviour in relation to males, their respective patterns of crimes appear to be broadly similar. For example, where female crime most-closely approximates to male crime is in relation to shoplifting and it's no coincidence that in this area of their social lives women have similar opportunities for crime to men. Furthermore, still 80-90% of offenders found guilty or cautioned are male.

This is a preview of the whole essay

Consequently, the sex-role theory argues that women are less likely to commit crime than men because there are core elements of the female role that limit their ability and opportunity to do so. The sex-role theory has three main elements that are integrated with it. They are socialization, which simply is where girls are socialized differently to boys. The values that girls are brought up to hold are those that simply do not lead to crime. Sociologist, Talcott Parsons (1973) argues for instance, that as most children rearing is carried out by mothers, girls have clear role model to follow that emphasizes caring and support. This is one of the fundamental reasons why women have a low percentage in criminality because of how they are looked after by their mothers and by learning different norms and values to what a father may teach his son/daughter. Social control is another element in the sex roles theory explaining that females are less likely to commit crime because of the closer levels of supervision that they are subjected to at home in childhood. This control carries on throughout life, with the role of women being more constrained that that of males. For instance Heidensohn (1996) points out “An examination of female criminality and unofficial deviance suggests that we need to move away from studying infractions and look at the conformity instead, because the most striking thing about female behaviour is how notably conformists to social mores women are”. Heidensohn refers to the wide range of informal sanctions meaning punishments to discourage women from straying from ‘proper’ behaviour, including gossip, ill repute and the comments of male companions. Hagan (1987) studied child-raising patterns in Canada and argues that there was significantly greater informal control of daughter’s activities in families compared to sons. Finally, Marginalization argues that in order to commit a crime, a person needs to have the opportunity to do so. The narrower range of roles that women are allowed to have consequently limits their opportunities to commit crime, as they re more confined by their socialization and are social control than men. The result of these three influences on the lives of females, is to deflect them away from offending and towards conformity

Although male sociologists have largely ignored female offending, feminist writers from the various strands within feminism have all sought to include criminological analyses within their approaches. Feminist has four main perspectives on crime and deviance. Being, Liberal feminism which approaches to feminism based on the idea that by brining women onto the agenda and by demonstrating how women have been ignored in research, there will be greater understanding of female deviance. In particular, new theories can be developed that will cover both males and females. Socialist feminism is also one main factor in the feminists perspective which concludes and stresses that the position of men and women in general and with reference to crime In particular can only be understood by locating males and females within the context of societies divided by both sexism and by capitalism.  Furthermore, radical feminism suggests that the only way to understand crime is to see it through a female perspective. Consequently, post modern feminism is particularly important since Smart (1990) and Cain (1986) argues that the very concerns of criminology (burglary/street crime etc) are actually a reflection of a male concerns, and that women should look at the way women are harmed by whole range of processes.

To summarise, I believe that the sex-role theory has valid and understandable facts to why women have low numbers in criminality. I consider better role models truly means a crime free life, which would make this society a peaceful and comfortable place to live in. However, everyone everywhere has once committed a crime being female or male. But we all have to remember  “Its not a crime to make a mistake, but it is a crime if you don’t learn from it.”

Document Details

• Word Count 937
• Page Count 3
• Level AS and A Level
• Subject Sociology

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Statistics on Gender and Crime

Last updated 18 Jul 2018

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What is the link between gender and crime?

Men are much more likely to commit crimes than women (although female crime has been rising faster than male crime since the late 20th century). Men and women also appear to commit different types of crimes (men are much more likely to commit violent crimes, for instance, accounting for 90% of murderers). Therefore, sociologists are interested in investigating why these differences in offending occur. As with all such differences, sociologists also ask whether they are real or whether the statistics are misleading due to the way they are produced.

Gender and Crime: If the Statistics Reflect Reality

One explanation for gender differences in levels of criminality is that men and women are simply different. This is sometimes known as sex role theory . Whether one takes a sociobiological approach and considers physical/genetic differences between the sexes, or prefer to emphasise gender socialisation , the suggestion is that "normal" masculinity is far more open to criminality than "normal" femininity.

Socialisation to be tough, dominant, etc. is more prone to criminality than socialisation to be nurturing and compliant. Of course, this could be a very outdated view, but it has some support from both functionalist and feminist perspectives (although functionalists would be more likely to suggest it was masculinity in the context of a particular subculture rather than masculinity in general that was likely to be deviant – e.g.Walter Miller's focal concerns ).

Marginalisation: some feminist sociologists suggest that the marginal position of women in a patriarchal society means that they commit fewer crimes than men. They have fewer opportunities to commit crimes because of marginalisation, as opposed to men who can commit occupational crime as well as their having a greater opportunity to form criminal subcultures because they are not confined to a domestic role.

Control Theory: Another explanation for gender differences in criminality is the idea that women and girls are controlled more than boys and men are. Part of the canalisation of gender roles during primary and secondary socialisation has historically been the comparative freedom that boys enjoy: being able to stay out later and generally being under less informal surveillance than girls. According to Frances Heidensohn, girls are controlled by fathers and other relatives until they are married when they are controlled by their husbands. The fact that boys and young men spend more time away from older or otherwise authoritative figures could account for their higher levels of criminality, especially anti‐social behaviour.

Some would suggest that this is an outdated theory and that young women are much more independent today than in the past. However, this change could account for the significant increase in female criminality in recent decades.

Gender and Crime - If the Statistics are Misleading

When trying to explain crime statistics showing that men commit many more criminal acts than women, some sociologists suggest that these statistics do not reflect reality. Rather mostly male law enforcement officers tend to attempt to protect women from the criminal justice system out of gentlemanliness. This is known as the chivalry thesis .

While this seems a rather fanciful theory on the individual level (it's hard to imagine a police officer letting someone off a significant crime simply because they were a woman) there is a broader point about social expectations. Another consequence of men's "chivalric" values is that they might think women incapable of committing many crimes (temperamentally or physically) and therefore not seriously consider their guilt. In terms of punishment, judges and magistrates (again predominantly male) may take pleas for mitigation more seriously.

An outdated theory from the 1950s, related to chivalry thesis, comes from Otto Pollack who argued that women commit as many crimes as men but are better liars and therefore get away with their crimes. He argues that women have to learn deception in order to hide menstruation and fake orgasms. I imagine you can come up with your own evaluation for that argument.

Evaluating Sociological Explanations for The Social Distribution of Crime and Deviance by Gender

• Many of these ideas seem very outdated. Liberal feminists would argue that women have achieved much more equality in society. Post‐modernists would dispute that society is patriarchal, instead arguing that society is much more complex. Is it still the case that men and women are socialised into very different roles? Are women more marginal in today's society? Are girls and women much more controlled by fathers and husbands than boys and men are by mothers and wives? Clearly many feminists argue that society is still patriarchal, but there is clearly a debate to be enjoined. Liberationist feminists point out that these changes in gender roles in society could explain why female crime is increasing.
• However S. Jones (2008) suggested that women in prison were often "co‐defendants" with a controlling man and therefore were pressured into criminality by patriarchal control. This is an interesting contrast with Heidensohn's control theory, where male control is presented as an explanation for not committing crime.
• The chivalry thesis also seems outdated. First, the number of female workers in the criminal justice system is increasing, although judges are still overwhelmingly male. Furthermore, the response to female deviance is often to see them as doubly deviant – i.e. deviating against society's norms and gender norms ‐ rather than to respond in a chivalrous manner.
• Carol Smart is critical of what she terms as malestream criminology. She points out that feminists should take a transgressive approach to criminology, focusing on what causes harm to women (irrespective of whether it is illegal or not). She notes that most existing theories of crime and deviance come from men, and they focus on what interests them: often violent and gang crime; male academics leading boring lives, living vicariously through their violent, risk‐taking subjects. Therefore you cannot expect their work to hold the answers to the questions women have.
• Gender (Crime)
• Crime and Deviance
• Official Crime Statistics
• British Crime Survey

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30 Media, Gender, Sex, and Crime

Lynn S. Chancer is Professor of Sociology at Hunter College – City University of New York.

• Published: 01 July 2014
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Second-wave feminism, the exponential growth and transformation of mass media, and academic interest in culture as mediator have each contributed to an intensification of research on media representations of gender, sex, and crime. This essay reviews research on the relationships between news media and perceptions of rape, domestic violence, and female offenders and victims. It then discusses the media as a gendered institution and the consequences of this for the public’s perceptions of and attitudes toward crime and criminals. Cultural criminology has made important contributions to our understanding of fictional, visual portrayals of gender, sex, and crime, and several of these contributions are highlighted. An important theme in the essay is that the ways in which gender, sex, media, and crime intersect have “real life” ramifications, affecting policies as well as perceptions. For this reason, further research is needed on the media’s potential to challenge traditional stereotypes about the relationships between crime and gender (as well as ethnicity, race, and class) as a way to encourage more progressive responses to gendered violence and crime.

30.1. Introduction

Starting in the 1960s, sociology and criminology experienced an intensification of research about media coverage and representations of gender, sex, and crime. Once unusual, articles on these topics have become more common; presentations frequently occur at the American Society of Criminology and American Sociological Association; and new volumes are published regularly (e.g., Boyle 2005 ; Stabile 2006 ; Humphries 2009 ; Monckton-Smith 2012 ). Even college and university courses now bring “Gender, Crime, Media, and Culture” together. 1 Why the accelerated scholarly and journalistic interest in this particular intersection of topics, and what does this bode for the future of criminology as both a sociological and interdisciplinary field of inquiry?

Three factors come to mind, each linked to research and publications that have appeared from the 1970s onward. First, in the aftermath of the second wave of American feminism of the 1960s and 1970s, it is virtually impossible to trace how criminology has unfolded without taking issues of gender and sexuality into account. Gender studies have revolutionized many fields, criminology being no exception. Early feminist theorists, from Simone de Beauvoir (1952) through Shulamith Firestone (1970) and Kate Millett (1970) , insisted that exercises of power occur not only in the conventionally understood political sphere but in the personal sphere of “sexual politics” as well. This opened the way for crimes that were previously treated as though merely “private” matters—such as rape, domestic violence, sexual harassment, and stalking—to be recognized as social problems entailing serious and widespread gender-based injustices. Another key concern for feminist scholars was how popular media and academic work portrayed female victims and offenders and thereby reinforced these injustices ( Millman 1975 ; Smart 1977 ).

A second reason for intensified interest in the intersection of gender, sex, crime, and media is historical and technological: the magnification, growth, and virtual explosion of modern mass media. At present, there are simply more ways that people can form impressions about crime in general, and gender, sex, and crime in particular, vis-à-vis media. Since the time of radio and newspaper representations of crime in the 1930s and the advent of television in the 1960s through the present, the media has multiplied in forms, evolving through cable television and new Internet social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, that have become national and international in scope. News stories “go viral” in ways unheard of in previous generations, making it incumbent on researchers to gauge how mass-mediated representations affect attitudes about a range of issues related to gender, sex, crime, and criminal justice. In other words, media matters, now more than ever. This realization has led criminologists to study people’s responses and attitudes to crime as well as the characteristics and processes of journalistic institutions in their own right.

Third, studying gender, sex, crime, and media parallels a growing academic preoccupation with culture as a mediator—literally and figuratively—between social institutions and individuals. Dissatisfaction with predominantly structural (e.g., Marxism) or psychological (e.g., Freudianism) theories directed interest toward culture as a salient dimension and to the need to avoid frustratingly one-dimensional “structure versus agency” modes of understanding. Consequently, in American sociology, culture is now the largest section of the American Sociological Association; in criminology, in the United Kingdom as well as in the United States, “cultural” criminology has attracted interest seemingly in tandem. Thus criminologists have scrutinized representations widely, not only in news stories about crime but also in the fictional depictions of crime in films and novels (e.g., Rafter 2000 ; Hendin 2004 ; Hayward and Presdee 2010 ). Increasingly, then, both sociologists and criminologists evince concern with the direction of broad cultural trends that affect how people process gender and sex-related aspects of their lives.

Common to all three sources of interest—feminist work on gender and sex, an explosive growth of media (and therefore crime in the media), and renewed concerns with culture—is the realization that how gender, sex, media, and crime intersect has “real life” ramifications, affecting policies as well as perceptions. For instance, policy reforms may be affected by media portrayals of rape victims as helpless or fighting back, the latter assertiveness characterizing the main character in the well-known film about a group rape, The Accused . Precisely for these reasons, criminology must continue to research interactions among gender, sex, media, and crime lest it lose its relevance to people’s day-to-day lives.

This essay elaborates on why media and the aforementioned intersection matters. It focuses on research corresponding with three sources of interest. First is a recent history of research on representations of gender and crime in news media, with special attention to scholarship that recognizes rape and domestic violence as social problems disproportionately affecting women. This section also discusses scholarship on portrayals of female offenders and of race, gender, and crime in news media. Second is an overview of recent studies of media institutions and gender and of how public perceptions of crime are influenced by the news media. The third section looks at work by cultural criminologists and scholars interested in fictionalized, visual portrayals of crime and gender. Finally, a concluding section broaches potentially useful directions for future research.

30.2. Gender, Sex, and Crime in the News

The findings from research on media portrayals of violence against women are complex and reflect changes in media practices over time; nonetheless, some key themes consistently emerge. Among these are the ways in which media portrayals tend to reflect and reinforce (rather than challenge) broad cultural notions and myths about female victims and male offenders, double standards in media representations of gender violence, and tendencies to ignore or obscure the social context for this violence. Research on media coverage of rape and intimate-partner violence stretching back to the 1970s provides numerous illustrations of, as well as important variations on, these themes (e.g., Smart and Smart 1978 ; Dobash and Dobash 1979 ; Lees 1995 ; Moorti and Cuklanz 2009 ; Monckton-Smith 2011 ). More recently, literature on news media representations of female offenders and of gender, race, and crime extends and diversifies earlier work on violence against women.

Analyses of news coverage of the 1983 sexual assault of a young woman in a New Bedford, Massachusetts bar and the trials of the men charged with the crime mark the beginning of heightened attention by feminist scholars to the power of the media (and the legal system) to shape public understandings of sexual violence, its victims, and its perpetrators ( Chancer 1987 ; Bumiller 1990 ; Benedict 1992 ; Cuklanz 1996 ). 2 Chancer’s examination of this case, in which a woman was raped by a number of men on a pool table while other men looked on and shouted encouragement, shows how media coverage tapped into popular myths about “real rape” and negative attitudes toward women engaged in unconventional gendered behavior. In the community where the crime occurred, this encouraged both victim-blaming and, after the trial and convictions, a view of the men as victims. According to Chancer’s discussion of attribution theory, people tend to blame victims who are raped in their own neighborhoods, or who know or are acquainted with their attackers. Blame also tends to increase when alcohol is present, and in barroom situations. Each of these circumstances characterized the New Bedford case (the young woman had gone out for a drink leaving her children at home with her boyfriend). Chancer’s analysis also points to the absence of media attention to the social context of the incident, and anticipates later feminist calls to consider intersections of gender with class, race, ethnic, and other inequalities by linking the neighborhood’s and the assailants’ working class, Portuguese background to the character of media coverage.

The New Bedford rape also figures prominently in Benedict’s (1992) analysis of media coverage of well-known cases of violence against women in the 1980s, including the Rideout case (involving marital rape), the killing of Jennifer Levin, and the Central Park jogger case. According to Benedict, reporters covering these cases often dichotomized their representations of “good” as opposed to allegedly promiscuous, “bad” women: Through the lens of their own gender, race, and class biases, journalists recycled the so-called “madonna/whore” (or “virgin/vamp”) division feminists have long bemoaned as rampant in the press and society as a whole. Benedict suggests various reforms to break this pattern, including greater sensitivity in press coverage language to avoid sexism, providing context for stories so that fears and misconceptions are not recirculated, and diversifying the press corps covering sex crimes in terms of reporters’ gender, race, and class backgrounds.

Much subsequent feminist research on media coverage of sexual violence reiterates Chancer’s and Benedict’s conclusions and elaborates on their implications. For example, Meyers (1997 , p. 9) observes that “news reports of women as victims of sexist violence act as both a warning to women and a form of social control that outlines the boundaries of acceptable behavior and the forms of retribution they can expect for transgression.” Who is likely to deliver that retribution, however, is often inaccurately presented, with important implications. For example, Soothill and Walby (1991) find that rapists are often portrayed as monsters, psychopaths, or “sex fiends” by the British press. Assailants are marked as distinctly different from “normal” men, and larger structures of gender inequality that lie behind such attacks are ignored ( Kozol 1995 ).

The idea that the media can challenge, rather than simply reinforce or ignore, pervasive beliefs about rape galvanized feminist scholars such as Marcus (1992) in the 1990s. As Hirsch (1994 , p. 1025) states, these scholars recognized that “media representations are potential sites for contesting cultural ideas about deviance and law and about gender, race, and class relations.” Hirsch’s comparison of the US and Kenyan media coverage of the 1991 rape and killing of girls at a Kenyan boarding school by their male schoolmates shows unintended consequences that can result from this potential by showing how “legal and feminist discourses are often incorporated into media accounts in ways that serve quite perverse ends” (p. 1055). While the Kenyan media coverage reinforced stereotypic images of the victims and their assailants, the US coverage attempted to provide context by attributing the incident to women’s subordinate position in and the traditional patriarchal nature of Kenyan society. The “perverse” effect of the latter was that “[b]‌y reinforcing images of African women as passively enduring abuse, ineffective or uninterested in resisting their own oppression, it raised the possibility that adult women share the blame for the violence” (p. 1045).

Caringella (2009) argues the legal system in the early twenty-first century remains daunting for women who wish to prosecute rapists in spite of feminist efforts to change victim-blaming media depictions and public perceptions (see Bumiller this volume). She acknowledges the influence of media while laying out a set of legal reforms, such as developing a “reasonable woman’s point of view” in addition to rape shield laws already widely implemented, so meaningful legal reform can result. She also sees a key reforming role for media in disseminating the meaningful phrase “no means no” and by journalists “policing themselves” to ensure that sensitive and ethical guidelines of reporting are followed (pp. 214, 281).

Other research examines press coverage of domestic violence. As with rape, heightened interest in domestic violence can be traced back to early insistence by feminists that the personal is political ( Firestone 1970 ; Millett 1970 ; also see Williams, McKelvey, Frieze this volume). Yet domestic violence was often considered a “private” matter that should be handled within families rather than with the assistance of police, communities, and larger publics. Not surprisingly, then, following second-wave feminism, battering has been the focus of research by scholars interested in media coverage of both highly and not-so-highly profiled crimes.

The extensive press coverage of the O. J. Simpson double-homicide case and trial in the mid-1990s heightened both journalistic and legal attention to the issue of domestic violence ( Chancer 2005 ). Subsequent research on news coverage of intimate-partner violence against women reveals a complicated picture. Berns (2004) , for example, argues that the media has constructed this violence as a social problem about victims who are either applauded for leaving their abusers or implicated in the violence by not doing so. She identifies three typical “frames” used by the media in portraying intimate-partner violence: a victim empowerment frame, an antifeminist frame, and a social justice frame. These frames rarely engage with abusers or the way their motivations reflect larger processes of gender inequality. Boyle (2005) identifies a contrasting set of narrative conventions around intimate-partner violence, including individual pathology, sin, and redemption on one hand and confession and counseling on the other. Arguing from a different vantage point, Monckton-Smith (2012) suggests that intimate-partner violence is typically represented as a problem faced by couples struggling with jealousy, anger, and depression. Similarly Nikunen (2011 , p. 94) finds that femicide-suicide, an extreme form of intimate-partner violence, tends to be naturalized as though “a normal feature of heterosexual relationships.”

The differences in these findings may reflect the news sources and the time periods studied. Television and print news have different styles and rely on different journalistic conventions, and the political orientations of news sources often vary. So, for example, in a study of the coverage of intimate-partner violence in two highly regarded California newspapers in 2000, McManus and Dorfman (2005) find that female victims were rarely blamed and male perpetrators’ accountability was rarely mitigated; they suggest the location of these newspapers in counties that “may be more progressive in coping with intimate violence” (p. 59) may account for these findings. At the same time, they note that intimate-partner violence received less and less in-depth coverage than other types of violence, which “reinforces the notion that domestic violence is a private rather than public problem” (pp. 58–59). This pattern shifts attention from how gender violence is portrayed to how much attention it receives in the news. Despite their differences, what these and many other analyses have in common is the view that media coverage tends to obscure the structured gender underpinnings of intimate-partner violence.

Women in abusive relationships who kill their partners present a particular challenge to the media because they do not appear to fit the typical frames used in coverage of intimate-partner violence and because they blur the lines between perpetrators and victims. In these cases, the range of representations appears to narrow to three: the mad, the bad, and the victim. In their analysis of newspaper coverage of battered women who killed their partners, Noh, Lee, and Felty (2010 , p. 126) report that journalists presented “typified models” wherein the predominant social construction of battered women who killed “was one of female deviants: they were either mad or bad.” In other words, press coverage seemed to perpetuate rather than debunk sexist beliefs that held women responsible for their own victimization in cases of intimate partner violence should they fight back.

Jones’ (2003) analysis of the case of Francine Hughes, who in 1977 killed her abusive husband by lighting his bed on fire, provides a variation on the mad/bad dichotomy. 3 The media (as well as the legal system) used Hughes’ extensive victimization at the hands of her husband to explain and excuse her act, by introducing the concept that became known as “battered women’s syndrome.” According to this narrative, Hughes was temporarily insane at the time of the killing as a consequence of the years of abuse she had suffered. However, according to Jones, a paradoxical result of such depictions is that journalists relied on traditional notions of feminine subservience, fragility, and emotionality—even in the face of contradictory evidence of agency rather than passivity—to construct Hughes as not fully responsible for her act. This in turn reinforces, rather than undermines, stereotypes about femininity ( Allen 1987 ). When violent females cannot be fit into the victim narrative, their violence is used to deny their femininity. In these cases, Jones argues, “criminal women are defeminized in legal, journalistic, and dramatic discourse; they are separated from ‘normal’ women, thereby assuring the patriarchy that women embrace their submissive status” (p. xi). Other commentators (e.g., Chesney-Lind and Eliason 2006 ) also describe the tendency of the media to masculinize women and girls who engage in crime.

The idea that “when actual women become violent some sense must be made of their actions if the myth of feminine passivity is to be maintained” ( Jones 2003 , p. x) is reiterated in Morrissey’s (2003) work on the discursive strategies used by the media and the law to construct women who kill. Whether applied to battered women, female serial killers, or mothers who kill their children, the stock characters she identifies—the psychologically disordered, the inhuman monster, and the victim of male violence—all work to deny women agency and their full humanity, a theme that appears in Hendin’s (2004) work as well. Morrissey’s challenge to feminists, the media, and the law is to embrace and encourage a more complex and diverse view of women who kill. A recent analysis by Seal (2009 , p. 73) of British newspapers’ campaign for the release of a woman convicted of murder demonstrates that the media representations of violent women can be both “complex and ambivalent” and reveal a “multiplicity of signs and discourses.” Shifting the focus of analysis from media coverage of high-profile cases to coverage of more ordinary or routine crimes by women—which Seal (2010) does in a subsequent book—is likely to provide examples of more multifaceted characterizations.

For most research on media representations of gender and crime, women—whether as victims or offenders—are center stage. However, investigating men and masculinities has also, and increasingly, interested scholars who study gender, crime, and media. In some of this work, scholars argue that men’s crime typically escapes the depth of media scrutiny given women’s since their crimes and violence may be assumed to be “natural” and thus not necessitating more in-depth explanation ( Boyle 2005 ; Klein 2006 ); by comparison crimes committed by women seem relatively more “deviant” and, from the media’s standpoint, thereby more noticeable. For example, Naylor’s (2001) analysis of violent crime stories in four British newspapers reports that compared to women’s violence—which received more coverage and was seen as more in need of explanation—men’s violence was presented as “normal.” In a variation on this theme, Consalvo (2003 , p. 40) argues that media coverage of the Littleton, Colorado, school shootings evokes R. W. Connell’s concept of not singular but plural “masculinities.” Consalvo suggests that the killers did not conform to what Connell calls “hegemonic” masculinity and were depicted as “deviant” in relation to the dominant socially constructed ideal. The idea that the shooters’ underlying sickness trumped every other cause meant that the more “everyday” school culture, as well as issues of racialization and masculinities in US society overall, tended to be let off the hook. For Naylor, Consalvo, and others, then, news coverage of specific acts of violence committed by men does not challenge links between masculinities and aggression in the broader culture.

The ways in which the media implicate race, ethnicity, or social class in coverage of male violence (and female victimization) are well documented in analyses of historical as well as contemporary news coverage ( Weiner 2004 ; Freedman 2011 ; Worthington 2012 ). Press reports about crime from the early nineteenth century onward in the United States reviewed by Stabile (2006) largely ignored the victimization of black men and women and constructed black men as threats to vulnerable, pure white women who could be protected only by white men. Underlying these reports was concern about an unacknowledged threat that black men supposedly posed to a specifically “white” hegemonic masculinity—a threat that could be mitigated through a system of “racialized androcentrism.” This theme is given contemporary relevance by Russell (1998) , Oliver (2003) , and Enck-Wanzer (2009) , who argue that crime news depicts black men as aggressive in ways that deflect attention from gendered violence committed by white “hegemonic” men.

Approaches that stress how gender and race-based discriminations relate can also be found, if less easily, in some studies of female offenders. One notable example is Stabile’s (2004) comparison of media coverage of the financial crimes and trials of Martha Stewart and male Enron executives. For the latter, being white, successful, and rich meant more factual, balanced, “objective” reports, whereas for Stewart, these characteristics “laid her open to vicious, personal attacks...Martha, the media suggested, like all women in a sexist culture, had somehow ‘asked for it’ —she had turned herself into a brand, she had sold out the domestic sphere, she was too confident, too ‘brash,’ too much” (p. 328).

30.3. The Media as a Gendered Institution and Crime

A sophisticated literature in both sociology and criminology also examines the media qua institution to probe the gendered nature of its values and culture and the effects of these on its day-to-day operations and audiences. Such studies have mushroomed in historical lockstep with changes in the complex character of mass media. This evolution has been facilitated partly by technological developments but also by intense intra- and intermedia competition as radio gave way to newspaper and television coverage and as television has competed with the advent of cable, the Internet, and new social media from the 1990s onward.

As an institution, the news media is seen and criticized by many scholars as significantly gendered ( Ross 2010 ; Kimmel 2011 ; Kearney 2012 ; Pugh Yi and Dearfield 2012 ). What Allan (1998) calls “the truth politics of news discourse,” whereby standards such as objectivity are not questioned, is one target of criticism. For some analysts, the concept of objectivity reifies a patriarchal way of knowing the world through logic and rationality ( Carter, Branston, and Allan 1998 ). Lotz (1991 , p. 63) describes the sway of objectivity as a news value and argues that “rules of objectivity force reporters to isolate crimes and treat each as a sample of one,” thereby failing to provide a broader sense of social and historical context. As a consequence, “news is not simply...mostly about and by men, it is overwhelmingly seen through the eyes of men” ( Hartley 1982 , p. 146; see also Croteau and Hoynes 2005 ).

What is chosen for news coverage is affected by news practices as well as journalists’ often subtle, hard-to-notice social biases. In a classic article about newspaper story selection, Tuchman (1974) explains that editors appear to prioritize novelty but only in relation to the “routine.” This combined emphasis means that recognizable themes recur through successive attention to a certain kind of crime, all the while fresh “news pegs” are sought in the interest of variety. Chancer (2005) posits that members of the press themselves believe and report that their decisions are based on what she calls “journalistic individualism,” the belief that story selection is made on the basis of sui generis traits of a particular story. According to reporters, the reason that the O. J. Simpson homicide case, which involved intimate-partner violence and accusations of racism, was covered intensively was because Simpson was a celebrity ( Chancer 2005 ).

To illustrate both Tuchman’s and Chancer’s points, take by way of example what the latter dubs a pattern of “playing gender against race” through the Tyson/Thomas/Simpson gender-and-crime stories of the 1990s ( Chancer 1998 ). In each of these highly publicized cases, an alleged sexist crime brought to cultural attention by feminists came to be distinctly symbolized in the figure of a black male who was prominent or a celebrity. Different, though, was that the particular crime in these cases varied from rape (alleged against Mike Tyson) to sexual harassment (alleged against Clarence Thomas) to intimate-partner violence (alleged against O. J. Simpson). This pattern illustrates Tuchman’s observation of media interest in routine as well as novelty. At the same time, it bears out Chancer’s(1998) contention that cases are selected on the basis of journalistic precedents, reporters’ and editors’ own past choices, and the historical/social/political context in which they operate. An insidious effect of this pattern is to “play gender against race” by raising concerns about racial biases in the course of calling feminist attention to crimes against women.

Clearly both racial and gender biases figure into which crimes, victims, and/or offenders are selected for coverage and how much coverage they receive ( Meyers 2004 ). For instance, in a study of newspaper coverage of all homicides occurring in Newark, New Jersey, between 1997 and 2005, Gruenewald, Pizarro, and Chermak (2009) find that crimes involving white female victims received significantly more news attention than crimes involving African American female victims. Stabile (2006) describes a similar pattern in her historical analysis of the press and emphasizes a pattern in which black women were excluded from the category of “worthy victims” (see also Beckett and Sasson 2000 ). Race and gender also affect selection of crime stories for television coverage. Research examining three popular political talk shows (CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight , MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, and Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor ) for a six-month period during 2005 and 2006 finds that in comparison to the picture that emerges around the same time from the National Crime Victimization Survey data, these programs overrepresented white female victims while minimizing the victimization of males and minorities ( Britto and Dabney 2010 ).

These results are troubling because, as Eschholz (2002) and others note with regard to the “reception” of news, people who watch television frequently have heightened fears of crime. Eschholz argues that disproportionate television coverage of racial or ethnic minority offenders increases fear of crime for whites who may become more punitive and “tough on crime”—especially crime by racial or ethnic minorities—as a result of frequent viewing. This sort of concern lies behind other research into the effects of news coverage of crime on audiences. These “reception studies” typically assume that people respond differently to the same exposure identically, an assumption that contrasts with the so-called mass culture approach of the Frankfurt School and its presumption that audience/readers could always be duped by what they see and read. Consistent with the premise of reception research, Chiricos, Esholz, and Gertz (1997) find that exposure to crime news had the strongest effects on fear of crime among white, middle-aged women.

Women’s fear of crime also has been linked to their viewing of reality television shows and news coverage of female victims ( Madriz 1997 ; Cavender, Bond-Maupin, and Jurik 1999 ). As a consequence, women may feel particularly vulnerable, see the world as a dangerous place, and grant greater legitimacy to male authority figures that are framed as experts and particularly authoritative on television. Ultimately then, according to Madriz (1997) , crime television operates as a form of social control of women. Yet other studies suggest a more complicated picture. Chiricos, Padgett, and Gertz (2000) find that frequency of watching local news is associated with greater fear of crime among black as well as white women and among males with recent victimization experiences. Further research, such as that by Custers and van den Bulck (2013) , is needed to understand the conditions under which people are affected by viewing crime news across social differences.

Another important consequence of viewing crime news is the distortion of people’s understandings of not only how much crime occurs but who commits it, under what circumstances, and who is typically victimized. For example, women and men may develop misleading assessments of the risks of certain activities, people, and places to the extent that sexual assaults by strangers are overrepresented in crime news, while attacks by acquaintances and intimate partners are underrepresented ( Greer 2003 ; Jewkes 2004 ).

30.4. Gender, Crime, and Culture

The significance of culture as a mediator between individuals and society—literally and figuratively—has been recognized over the past several decades within both criminology and sociology. This tendency was historically presaged in the writings of the Birmingham School of Cultural Studies, which produced Hall and colleagues’ (1978) criminological classic Policing the Crisis. A more recent “cultural turn” can be identified within criminology in the writings of Ferrell, Hayward, and Young (2008) , among others, and by the establishment in 2005 of the journal Crime Media Culture . For cultural criminologists, the ways people generate meaning are a key focus of inquiry. From this perspective, crime and its control are cultural products or constructs that arise in part from “deep within the vast proliferation of media images of crime and deviance, where every facet of offending is reflected in a vast hall of mirrors...[Cultural criminology] attempts to make sense of a world in which the street scripts the screen and the screen scripts the street...the line between the real and the virtual is profoundly and irrevocably blurred” ( Hayward and Young 2004 , p. 259).

Cultural criminologists have joined feminist criminologists in examining popular representations of gender and crime in diverse fictional and visual media. For instance, feminist criminologists Rafter and Brown (2011 , p. 1) begin their work “with the assumption that criminology is hard at work in culture and that culture is hard at work in criminology”; they focus “on the cultural site that exemplifies this engagement perhaps better than any other—Hollywood cinema.” In applying this perspective to films like Thelma and Louise (which stirred controversy because Louise shoots and kills a man attempting to rape Thelma), Rafter and Brown suggest that artistic representations can protest sexism and point beyond women’s experiences of victimization.

Other fictional visual representations of rape, both in movies and television, are highlighted in other scholars’ studies. In an analysis of 100 prime-time television shows between 1976 and 1990, Cuklanz (2000) finds distinct differences between those broadcast before and after the mid-1980s. In the earlier period, rapes largely were represented in stock story lines as attacks by strangers who seriously injured their victims; victims, however, were not the focus of these stories. Rather, rapists and male detectives took center stage, the former portrayed as monstrous and the latter as violent avengers sympathetic to and protective of the victims. In a follow-up piece, Cuklanz and Moorti (2006) explore the depiction of sexual assault in the television program Law and Order: Special Victims Unit . While acknowledging the feminist influence and perspective of the show, they argue that female criminals and qualities are denigrated in certain respects and that “the tradition of the historically masculine detective genre” is upheld (p. 302).

Fictionalized portrayals of sexual assault can have important consequences. For instance, Young (2010) argues that it should not automatically be assumed that popular cultural representations convey the trauma and violence of rape in ways most feminists would approve. Indeed McKinnon (1993) suggests that, by titillating audiences, media depictions of rape function as pornography more than condemnation. 4 Relatedly Kahlor and Eastin (2011) find that television viewing can encourage the acceptance of rape myths, including the myth that women “enjoy” rape. On the whole, then, some research in this area interprets dominant representations of sexual assault as insidiously undermining progressive approaches to understanding and preventing violence against women ( Cuklanz 2000 ).

Cultural criminologists and criminologists interested in fictional representations of crime highlight the ideological and political texture of movies, television, and other visual media as well as multiple understandings these media evoke ( Cavender 1999 ; Rafter 2000 ; Jones and Wardle 2008 ). For example, as Rafter (2007 , p. 403) comments about sex and crime in film, “[i]f we define criminology as the study of crime and criminals, then it becomes clear that film is one of the primary sources (albeit an unscientific one) through which people get their ideas about the nature of crime.” Visual representations of crime also reflect and reinforce popular notions about gender. For Sparks (1996) , this is a key element of the effects of screen violence. His analysis of masculinity and heroism in Hollywood movies concludes that although men’s fantasies are fed by images of the sacrifice, courage, and risk-taking of filmic heroes, this is only one of many products of these images. More troubling for Sparks is the argument made by Tompkins (1992 , pp. 228–29, emphasis in original) that “The entire purpose of the pattern...[is] to get the audience to the point where it can’t wait till the hero lets loose with his six-shooters...Vengeance, by the time it arrives, feels biologically necessary...This is the moment of moral ecstasy. The hero is so right (that is, so wronged) that he can kill with impunity.”

30.5. Future Directions for Media and Crime Research

Research on media representations of gender, sex, and crime is a significant and growing subarea within the study of crime and deviance generally. As this essay indicates, a number of themes have emerged from this research. Many representations of women and men as victims and offenders in news media, movies, and television tend to reinforce gender stereotypes, as well as other stereotypes concerning ethnicity, race, and class. In addition, crime stories selected for media coverage seem to influence beliefs and fears about crime differently for women and men. At the same time, many scholars believe media representations can challenge traditional notions and encourage more progressive responses to gendered violence. For cultural criminologists (and as has happened analogously in sociology), crime, criminal justice, media, and culture are closely interconnected; these scholars have called for criminologists to pay much closer attention to the importance of culture. Cultural criminology is likely to have an even greater impact as the interdisciplinary orientation of criminology and the complexity of mass media continue to expand.

What directions in the study of gender, sex, media and crime deserve further exploration going forward? For one thing, cultural criminology, as introduced in the work of Ferrell, Hayward, and Young (among others), emphasizes the need to further explore crimes’ cultural meaning for participants. One criticism of this rich and emerging subfield of media and crime research, though, is that while cultural criminology has produced some analysis of masculinities and crime (e.g., Winlow and Hall 2009 ), cultural criminologists have not devoted much attention to gender overall (the work of Cunneen and Stubbs [2004] is an exception). Still, cultural criminology has the potential to be used such that gender as it affects both women and men is highlighted and insights from a rich array of feminist theories are more noticeably incorporated.

A second direction for gender, crime, and media studies is toward greater inclusion of film and television studies. This suggestion acknowledges the strong influence of crime news as well as popular cultural media like television and film in affecting how people imagine, perceive, and even make policies regarding crime. Further work is needed to recognize, as do Rafter and Brown (2011) , how lines between fictional and nonfictional “realities” of crime can become blurred in contemporary media.

Third, much can be learned from the theoretically sophisticated development of film studies and cinema research in the humanities. For instance, classic film discussions of the male gaze and of different spectator positions taken when watching movies may be applicable to criminology by providing insight into how people “read” representations of gender and crime sometimes consciously but also in unconscious ways. This is precisely the focus of Duncan’s (1999) interesting work on outlaws and American culture, a study that creatively incorporates psychoanalytic ideas.

A fourth and increasingly rich area of study concerns new media that are digitally interactive and produced directly by users. Similar to older forms of mass media, new media can produce, reproduce, transform, and challenge images of gender and crime. They also can provide more opportunities for gender violence (e.g., Dimond, Fiesler, and Bruckman 2011 ), more methods by which women can respond to gender violence (e.g., Daniels 2009 ), while affecting perceptions of gender stratification of crime (e.g., Adams 2003 ). Indeed, the growth of cyberculture, the globalization of new media, and the emergence of virtual communities seem likely to alter the relationships among gender, crime, and media in significant ways.

The vibrant subfields of gender, media, sex, and crime—and their interaction—are here to stay. As the twenty-first century unfolds, examining both nonfictional and fictional media is likely to become increasingly important. Crime is intimately bound up with our definitions, perceptions, and social reactions, making the media a key dimension for understanding issues of sexism and heterosexism that feminists from the second wave through the present have brought into the spotlight of our cultural awareness.

For example, the Graduate Center of the City University of New York offers a course called “Gender, Crime, Media and Culture.”

The assault and the trials were the subject of the 1988 movie The Accused.

This killing is the subject of the 1984 made-for-TV movie The Burning Bed .

There is an extensive literature on the effects of viewing pornography on attitudes toward women and toward violence against women, which is beyond the scope of this essay. Important recent work on this topic includes Diamond (2009) ; Ferguson and Hartley (2009) ; Malamuth, Hald, and Koss (2012) ; and Purcell (2012) .

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