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The study of gender and crime has followed a trajectory, from finding that women offend differently, to exploring how gendered lives impact the nature and extent of offending.

—Conover-Williams (2014, p. 449)

Studies consistently show not only that girls and women commit far fewer crimes than boys and men but also that their offenses tend to be less serious and violent in nature. This chapter draws on prior and current research and data to describe girls and women’s offending and assess gender comparisons in offending. For a complete understanding of the studies and data, a gendered account of offending must be examined and understood in several contexts:

1 The extent of offending

2 The nature of offending

3 Gender stereotypes and assumptions about girls and women’s offendingHow gender stereotypes and assumptions intersect with race, class, sexuality, nationality, and other factorsHow gender stereotypes influence legal codes and enforcement of laws that have a gendered impact

4 Changes in the extent and nature of offending over time

The extent of offending is the frequency with which various offenses (e.g., homicide, burglary, arson) or combinations of offenses (e.g., delinquency, violent crimes, property crimes) are committed. The nature of offending addresses the type and seriousness of various offenses. Gender comparisons in offending are commonly evaluated by determining which offenses are gender-related and which are gender-neutral (Smart, 1976). Gender-related crimes are more likely to be committed by one sex/gender than the other. Gender-neutral crimes are equally likely to be committed by one sex/gender or the other. If an offense is gender-related, it is further identified by male- or female-gender-related to designate which gender is more likely to commit the crime. Most crimes are male-gender-related, and rape, homicide, and other violent crimes are especially so. The most common example of a female-gender–related crime is sex work (mostly measured as prostitution). There were no existing guidelines on what percentages constitute gender-neutral or gender-related until the fourth edition of this book, where I designated a crime as gender-related if there was a gender gap of more than 20 percentage points, and gender-neutral with a gender gap of less than 10 percentage points. Crimes with a gender gap between these—that is, greater than 10% and less than 20%—are designated as approaching gender-related (see Figure 4.1).

Historically, legal codes for some offenses were written so that only one sex/gender could be a victim or offender. For example, until the 1970s many rape laws specified that only men (and boys) could be offenders and only women (and girls) could be victims. Similarly, many prostitution laws specified only women and girls as offenders (and no “victims,” but male clients were occasionally considered offenders). Significantly, even if the legal code is gender-neutral in identifying offenders and/or victims (i.e., not specifying “penis,” “woman,” etc.), the applications may still be gender-specific (Allison Morris, 1987). For example, even when the prostitution laws are changed to include male sex workers or to arrest clients as well as sex workers, police may be less likely to detect male sex workers because they do not envision them in these roles, and police, prosecutors and judges may continue to disregard sex worker clients as offenders (even if the law identifies them as law-breakers) because they do not fit their stereotypes of offenders (see Farley & Kelly, 2000). These responses are likely legacies of the positivist theorists (Chapter 2).