Читать книгу The Invisible Woman - Joanne Belknap - Страница 15

Most criminology theories are concerned with what “causes” crime and thus focus on factors related to offending, primarily male juvenile offending. Until the late 1970s, it was highly unusual for these studies to include girls or women in their samples. Although gender is the strongest factor indicating a person’s likelihood to break the law, these (almost exclusively male) researchers rarely thought it necessary to include women or girls in their samples. The irony is that “sex, the most powerful variable regarding crime has been virtually ignored” (Leonard, 1982, p. xi). Criminology theories were constructed “by men, about men” and explain male behavior rather than human behavior (p. xi). Significantly, studying why women and girls offend less frequently than men and boys “could arguably provide clues for dealing with men’s criminality” and provide more deterrence to offending (A. Morris, 1987, p. 2).

When the researchers included girls in their samples prior to the 1980s (and too often since then), it was typically to see how girls fit into boys’ equations. That is, rather than include in the study a means of assessing how girls’ lives might be different from boys’ lives, girls’ delinquency has typically been viewed as peripheral and unnecessary to understanding juvenile offending and processing. It is not a coincidence that the criminal behavior of women and girls (regardless of race) (Leonard, 1982; A. Morris, 1987) and people of Color (regardless of gender) (A. Morris, 1987; Ross, 1998; Wotherspoon & Hansen, 2019) has historically (and, to some extent, currently) been attributed to biological causes, whereas white boys and men’s crimes are more frequently attributed to economic and social factors such as social class, access to opportunities to learn crime, and area of residence in a city.

Another aspect of the invisibility of female offenders is the “correctional” institutions provided for women and girls. The jails, prisons, and delinquent institutions for women and girls, both historically and presently, vary drastically from those for boys and men, mostly to the disadvantage of girls and women. Moreover, historically, treatment and punishment issues/opportunities differ vastly for women based on race (Butler, 1997; C. F. Collins, 1997; P. H. Collins, 1990; Freedman, 1981; Rafter, 1985; Young, 1994). The excuse for the lack of research on institutions housing women and girl offenders, as well as the lack of training, vocational, educational, and counseling programs available to incarcerated women and girls, is that women and girls make up a small percentage of offenders. This lack of interest in and opportunities for women and girls are particularly disturbing given that since the 1970s, their incarceration rate grew much faster than men’s (Hammett & Drachman-Jones, 2006; Immarigeon & Chesney-Lind, 1992; Kline, 1993; Lo, 2004; Mumola & Beck, 1997; Sokoloff, 2005).