There is a big issue among sociologists about how gender affects crime and deviance. Who commits more crime, men or women? Crime is referred by Webster’s dictionary1 as an illegal act which someone can be punished by the government. Deviance are actions and behaviour which violate social norms. Some sociological theorists think that males commit more, because of muscularity and different socialization of boys and girls. Some other thinkers would not agree with it. The sociologists try to proof their ideas by provising statistics in their researches, but it is agrueable whether these statistics are reliable or not. This essay is going to explore: firstly, the view that men tend to commit more crimes than women; secondly reasons for men committing
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Durkheim expressed his opinion on correlation of gender and homicide. He argued that females commit more crimes than it widely known. Also he explained, why women tend to commit fewer murders than men. Durkheim argued that opportunities to commit crimes, especially crimes such as homicide, depend on socialization caused «homicidal passions» to be felt by men, but not women. Some of his comments are seemed to be controversial, however these points are significant and made a large impact in early criminological research. Official statistics can be considered as evidence of functionalist research. Official statistics are statistics provided or published by government. Official stats show that men commit much more crime than women. Statistics on Women and the Criminal Justice System 20114 shows that there were 1,139,135 male defendants proceeded against at Magistrate Court, while female defendants were much less, 351,150. As It was stated before, functionalist sociologists see men’s muscularity as one of the main purposes of women being assaulted. However, this type of statistics may be not valuable for some reasons. Firstly, some crimes are not reported to the police. Stephanie Yearnshire6 (1997) found that on average woman will make report only after 35 assaults. Statistics show that domestic violence is type of crime which is one of the least crimes reported. Secondly, the police sometimes is not keen on investigating or reporting such cases. David Cheal6 (1991) found out that family is commonly considered as something very personal and police are not usually involved in the family
Durkheim expressed his opinion on correlation of gender and homicide. He argued that females commit more crimes than it widely known. Also he explained, why women tend to commit fewer murders than men. Durkheim argued that opportunities to commit crimes, especially crimes such as homicide, depend on socialization caused «homicidal passions» to be felt by men, but not women. Some of his comments are seemed to be controversial, however these points are significant and made a large impact in early criminological research. Official statistics can be considered as evidence of functionalist research. Official statistics are statistics provided or published by government. Official stats show that men commit much more crime than women. Statistics on Women and the Criminal Justice System 20114 shows that there were 1,139,135 male defendants proceeded against at Magistrate Court, while female defendants were much less, 351,150. As It was stated before, functionalist sociologists see men’s muscularity as one of the main purposes of women being assaulted. However, this type of statistics may be not valuable for some reasons. Firstly, some crimes are not reported to the police. Stephanie Yearnshire6 (1997) found that on average woman will make report only after 35 assaults. Statistics show that domestic violence is type of crime which is one of the least crimes reported. Secondly, the police sometimes is not keen on investigating or reporting such cases. David Cheal6 (1991) found out that family is commonly considered as something very personal and police are not usually involved in the family