Theories Of Female Deviance And Crime
...crimes and are evaluated on the same set of sociological theories which were originally developed by men to account for male behavioral patterns. Throughout the history of the criminal justice system, numerous theories have been developed in an effort to explain and possibly even rationalize those actions which society has deemed to be criminal behavior. However, these vast and complicated theories have all but completely neglected the area of female criminality. Of the few male criminologists who have studied female offenders in depth, these men have tended to describe female lawbreakers as immoral, corrupt, hysterical, manipulative and devious (Rafler, 2000:70). Female criminals have long been viewed as having a biological and/or psychological defect whereas the male dominated theories of criminology attribute everything from lack of "proper" attention, poor social interaction, terrible role models and Saturday morning cartoons to the criminal activities among the male population.
Deviance can take a variety of forms and have a variety of definitions for each form. For example, deviance was defined according to Edward Sagarin as "the notion that most sociologists perceive deviance as a collection of conditions, persons or acts that society disvalues, finds offensive or condemns (Sagarin, 1975: 9). The definition of a deviant according to the American Heritage Dictionary is "(adj.) Differing from a norm or from the accepted standards of a society. (n). One that differs from a norm, especially a person whose behavior and attitudes differ from accepted social standards." For the purposes of comparison in this paper the "normative definition" of deviance will be used. The normative definition of deviance is a departure from perceived social norms that draws social disapproval such that the variations elicit, or are likely to elicit, if detected, negative...
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