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THESIS

 

 

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A CRITIQUE OF RECENT MEDIA PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN OFFENDERS
AND THE RISE IN FEMALE CRIME

presented by

Peggy A. TooIis

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

___M.A.._degree in incinloggL_

Major professor

Date October 3, 1979

 

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A CRITIQUE 0F RECENT MEDIA PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN OFFENDERS
AND THE RISE IN FEMALE CRIME

By

Peggy A. Toolis

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fuifiITment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of SocioTogy

I979

 

ABSTRACT

A CRITIQUE 0F RECENT MEDIA PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN OFFENDERS
AND THE RISE IN FEMALE CRIME

By
Peggy A. Toolis

This thesis critically examines widespread claims that women are
increasingly involved in criminal, especially violent criminal activity,
and that this rise is a conseouence of the women's liberation movement.
These claims are explained in terms of the construction of a social
problem, defined primarily in the media through the use of crime themes
(i.e. where a number of specific incidents are later grouped under a
general category or theme). Academic and media portrayals of women
offenders are also discussed and compared. Content analysis of articles
in newspapers revealed differential coverage and portrayal of crimes
committed by men and women. The rise in rates of overall female crime,
and violent female crime in particular is shown to be unreliable and
lacking full substantiation. The linkage of the women's liberation
movement and the claimed rise in rates of female crime is shown to be
tenuous. Media are seen as the primary creators and fomenters of this

perceived social problem.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank the members of my committee Barrie Thorne, Marilyn
Aronoff and James B. McKee for their assistance, support and criticisms.
Also, Peggy and Carol deserve countless thanks for their understand-

ing and assistance in helping me complete this project.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part
I. INTRODUCTION
II. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
III. METHODOLOGY
IV. PORTRAYAL OF THE WOMAN OFFENDER

Academic Portrayal
Media Portrayal

V. DISCUSSION AND CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Critical Look at the Statistical Rise of the
Female Offender
Social Construction of the Phenomenon of the
"Rise of Women Offenders"
VI: CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

36
39

53.

PART I: INTRODUCTION

In the past ten to fifteen years, issues relating to and involving
women have been given a substantial amount of media coverage. Televi-
sion, newspapers, and magazines report daily on women's accomplishments
and defeats. This was not the case fifteen years ago and we might give
credit for this increased attention to the women's liberation movement.
At the same time, the media have been covering what they have portrayed
as the dark side of the women's movement by pointing out, for example,
rising rates of divorces, and an increase in female heart attacks.

This paper explores another example of the media's portrayal of the
dark side of feminism: women offenders and their increased involvement
in crimes and violent crimes.

The relationship of the women's movement to crime is a fuzzy issue
surrounded by controversy, with experts elaborating positions of all
kinds and with some individuals profiting through book, magazine and
newspaper sales, theses, etc. I chose to look at this example of claims
about the dark side of the women's movement by studying how the media
have treated women's crime. I focused on newspaper, as well as academic
portrayal.

In order to fully understand how the tie has been made between the
women's movement and women offenders, one must first ask and gain some
understanding of the question "Why do women commit crimes?" Many possi-
ble answers have been given in academic works, and these have influenced
public conceptions of the issue. Experts often wield influence through

1

‘

the media, an influence usefully conceptualized in terms of crime
themes. One example of a crime theme is the recent theme of crimes
against the elderly. Specific incidents become apart of a broader con-
cept. In their analysis, experts interpret a range of events within
the framework of a given theme. Women and crime have become such a
theme; incidents involving a woman with crime becomes an instance of
the theme "woman offender" or the "violent woman offender" and other
interpretations (such as the possibility of an economically motivated
crime) are not provided. This thesis explores the relationship and
development of the women's crime theme among academic theorists and the
media. Among these influential, more academic theorists, there are

two who have argued that there is a direct relationship between the
women's movement and women's crime. With an aura of expert knowledge,
their positions have helped publicize the notion of a tie between
feminism and female crime, which has been picked up by the media.

The media (especially newspapers) have given considerable atten-
tion to the idea that there may be a connection between the women's
movement and crime. They feature articles which claim an increase in
women's participation in crime, especially violent crime. By now the
media is sensitized to the idea that women commit crime and to a possi—
ble rise in women crime rates; therefore, one might expect that there
has been some change in media reporting of incidents where women are
perpetrators of crime. This study was designed to examine possible
changes in the reporting of women's crime. To see if the media treats
women and men differentially, I studied the types of offenses, head-
lines, space allocation and the number of articles reporting on female
and male crime in the Detroit Erg§_flr§§§_and Ihg_Ngw_19§k_lj£@§_over

a nine year period.

‘

My data suggest the tenuous nature of any primary link between the
women's movement and the "rise of female offender" and of claims about
the rise of "the violent woman offender." Evidence is given which sug—
gests that the available statistics on female crime are unreliable. It
is further suggested that the "rise of violent female crime" is a social
construction primarily created by the media.

Women offenders are not receiving as much support from the feminist
community as are victims of rape or woman battering. The unfortunate
cause-effect link of feminism to women offenders may partially explain
this. Defense counsel does not seek the help of the feminist community
in preparing a defense. Perhaps media attention of women offenders has
been effective in conveying to faniniststhat these women are deceitful
and not deserving of help. In other words, battered women are easily
seen by feminists as victims, whereas women offenders and women prison
inmates are hidden by conventional notions of deviance.

Two trends has arisen from this, women are being incarcerated at
disproportionately higher rates than in years past and arrest statistics
are rising. While the former trend is clear (a simple body count) the
latter can be challenged (that is while more women are being arrested
it does not necessarily indicate a rise in actual crime). One must
recognize the possibility of important shifts in beliefs held by judges,
police and prosecutors who have been influenced by challenges to the
traditional way of viewing the nature of women. I contend, therefore,
that the rising crime rates of women are not a real example of the
"dark side" of the women's movement and overlook "dark side" of feminism
is the fact more women are being held in the most repressive institutions

in the interest of the state. Those people in positions who have

discretionary power to define an act as criminal have perhaps been more
deeply affected by feminism. Their world view has been modified/influ-
enced/affected by the women's movement and its struggle to achieve
”equality." (It is somewhat inconceivable for people to run for office
now without stating their position of women's place in society.) It is
possible then that their discretion inherent in their jobs (for example,
a judge uses his/her discretion in sentencing, such as parole, prison,
rehabilitation program, etc.) calls for more, harsh treatment or, per-

haps, simply "equal” treatment.

PART II: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Recent years have seen a growing controversy, both in the academic
and public spheres, about the present nature of female criminal behavior.
Explanations about the sudden "rise of the new female criminal" are at
the heart of this controversy, each explanation seeking to account for
the increased numbers of women on the police blotters in the l970's.
The rise in violent women's crime is another critical issue, yet expert's
analysis of this phenomenon is more varied. Overall, between l960-l975
the crime statistics show a 102% increase in arrests for women compared
with a 23% increase for men. Two experts who looked at this trend,
Freda Adler and Rita Simon, both accept the fact there has been an
actual rise in female crime. They disagree over the involvement of
women in violent crime. Adler argues that women are more involved in
violent crimes; Simon says their involvement in crimes of violence has
not changed, but that they have increased involvement in property and
other less serious offenses.

One of the first and most influential to theorize about rising
female crime rates was Freda Adler who, in the most often cited book on
the subject Sisters jg_§rymg (1975), proposed that the loosening of
gender roles, partly due to the women's movement, allowed women to try
their hand in the criminal sphere. Through liberation, women's roles
have become masculinized and the "new feminism" will increase women's
awareness, thereby allowing and compelling women to seek equal opportu-
nity in illegitimate as well as legitimate spheres. She predicts that

5

‘

this unfortunate but inevitable side effect of the women's movement has
led and will continue to lead to increased involvement in violent as
well as property offenses.

In the same year, 1975, Rita Simon offered her analysis of the same
phenomenon, which she called the "major by-product" of the women's move-
ment. Simon used 1960's and 1970's FBI Crime Statistics to show that
women have increased their participation in property offenses but have
become no more violent than they were ten years earlier. She argues
that the women's movement gives women the opportunity to obtain better
jobs and, for some, the opportunity to commit crimes in new job settings.
She predicts that violent crime will decrease because women, while
taking better white collar jobs, will feel less frustrated in their
newly obtained positions; therefore, they will not have to take it out
on their loved ones.

Klein and Kress (1976) added yet a third perspective on the rise
of female crime. They suggest the increase in numbers of women offenders
(violent or non-violent) may or may not be an indication of a rise in ,
actual illegitimate activity. They maintain that other factors may be
influencing this rise in arrests, such as the changed perception of
women by the police or a change in the political situation of women.
They feel ”that the larger class structure of sexism . . . is repro-
duced in the illegal marketplace" (Klein and Kress, 1976:41). The
social position of women at a particular time also influences the extent
and type of crime they will commit. Due to the historically disadvan-
taged position women have held in terms of commodity production and
distribution, including "the competitive illegal marketplace of goods

and services, e.g. drugs and prostitution" (ibid.) women (both those

‘

with male "providers" and those who are independent) are not prepared
to enter that market aggressively either socially, psychologically or
economically to steal.

Klein (1973) reviewed theoretical writings on the woman offender
and argued that all of them were grounded in classist, racist, and
sexist assumptions. Traditionally, the causes of female crime (as well
as male crime) have been explained in biological and psychological terms
(such as, it is in women's inherent nature to commit crimes); more re-
cently it has been asserted that women are unable or unwilling to fill
their "normal" social roles (whereas, it may be argued that men commit
crimes as a deviant extension of their role). Shover and Noland (1976)
reviewed empirical and descriptive studies of the woman offender and
noted the assumptions inherent in these writings. They conclude, along
with Klein, that the research is built on supposedly shared notions of
the stereotypic (classist, sexist, racist) beliefs about the sexes as
did Klein (further discussion of the beliefs will follow).

Klein (1973), Klein and Kress (1976), Smart (1976) and Weis (1976)
are all critical of the unicausal explanation that changes in female
roles result inevitably in increased criminal activity among women.
Rather, they suggest that some investigation into the interrelationship
of political-economic variables, gender roles and criminal activity is
needed.

The question of the reliability and validity of the Uniform Crime
Reports (UCR's) is ultimately at the root of this controversy. Bowker
(1978) states that criticizing UCR's serves no useful purpose when talk-
ing about the woman offender and delinquent. "For the moment, it is
better to suspend criticism in order to get on with the task of examin-

ing the data at hand" (Bowker, 1978:4). Adler (1975) accepts the crime

‘

statistics but shows how the statistics on violent crime can be reinter-
preted. Klein and Kress (1976) question all of the statistics, (as I
do) citing changed in the recording of the statistics as possible expla-
nation of the rise (i.e. changes in police attitudes, different organi-
zation of data) although the extent of such influence is difficult to
assess. Black (1970) offers the explanation that UCR's measure "actual"
social control operations (which increase or decrease in effectiveness)
rather than "actual“ deviant behavior.

Weis (1976:14) states the overall analysis of "the 'new female
criminal' seems to be a product of the collective imaginations, perhaps
wishes, of misguided observers and analysts." Smart (1976), writing
from the United Kingdom, is hesitant to write a book on the female
offender for fear that she might add to a body of literature that they
then can construe as describing a new visible social problem:

It is not beyond the bounds of reason to imagine that if

agents of social control and the mass communications media

become sensitized to a new "problem" their subsequent ac-

tions may well lead to the appearance of increased in the

rates of crimes and an escalation in the reports of violent

and criminal offences by women and of delinquency in girls.

(Smart, l976:XIV)

The female crime phenomenon can be usefully looked at as a case of
the social construction of a problem. Spector and KitSuse (1977),
theorizing more generally about the social construction of social prob-
lems, have views similar to those of Weis and Smart. Social problems
become what people say and think they are. Spector and Kitsuse see ‘
social problems as the activities or products of individuals or collec-
tives, (such as analysts, agents of social control, and the mass commun-
ications media) who make assertions or claims that problematic condi-

tions exist. People find areas for claims-making activities to

construct their beliefs about a problematic condition. It appears then
that Smart is fearful of being interpreted as adding to the construc-
tion of the female offender ”problem", hence further compounding the
”problem."

The mass media are a key arena for claims-making activities.
Hubbard, DeFleur, and DeFleur (1975) see mass media as having some im-
pact on emerging social problems. Claims-makers influence the public
by passing on definitions of the problem and their feelings that this
is a problem that they should be concerned with. Writing in a similar
vein, Mark Fishman (1978) analyzes the construction of a crime wave
against the elderly in New York City. He shows how claims-makers, in
this case journalists and police officials, worked together to create
or construct a particular crime wave in New York. Crime waves are often
unsupported by the actual crime statistics (which have not, in fact,
actually increased in that period of time); instead, they are results of
a crime theme. It then appears that crime waves are related to people's
awareness of crime, not crime itself. In understanding the reporting of
crime by the media "studying crime waves means studying processes in the
mass media" (Fishman, 1978:33).

The "rise of the female offender" can now be viewed as a construc-
tion involving several interrelated areas. Construction of this partic-
ular "problem" seems to have begun with the citation of a rise in sta-
tistics followed by explanations by experts in academic and social con-
trol agencies, which also had the effect of dramatizing the statistics.
The mass media became a place for claims-makers to state their beliefs,
and as a "rise of female crime" theme emerged in the media and hence

in public awareness, newspapers, magazines, and television began to

‘

 

l

10

report crimes involving women as cases of the theme. Attention paid to
these offenders in the media and academia sensitizes officials to the
rise and its relationship to the women's movement. This indirectly
generated further "proof" when officials began to "crack down" and

"give women the equality they want."

III: METHODOLOGY

I wanted to reconstruct the development of the phenomenon of the
"rise of the female offender" and see if media treated men and women
offenders differently in reporting crimes. Since newspapers are pre-
served on microfilm I found it convenient to use them as primary data
sources.

I sought out articles that dealt with men and crime and/or women

and crime. The New York Times Index was helpful in locating general

 

articles on women (there was, significantly, no such category for men),
which in turn helped establish the approximate time period of the "rise"
from 1972-1977. I then went to the Detroit Ergg_flr§§§_to locate all
general articles about crime. Since the Detroit Eggg_Erg§§_does not
maintain an index, I perused all issues for the years 1970-1977 to look

for such articles. Ihg_Reader's Guide tg_Periodical Literature provided

 

titles of articles in the more popular magazines. It was from these
three sources that I was able to reconstruct the "rise" of the female
offender in the media.

I then looked at specific incidents of crime reporting. I looked
through every issue of the Detroit frgg_flrg§§ for the month of May for
each of the years 1970-1978. For every report of a crime I noted the
sex of the accused perpetrator, number of square inches of the article,
where the story originated from, headline, and type of offense. (I
excluded two crime themes from this process, the Watergate scandal and

war crimes stemming from Viet Nam. Comparison of women's involvement
11

l2

in national and international crimes to men's is ludicrous.) Tables
(which appear in later discussions) were constructed from these data to
draw comparisons between media treatment of men and women on several

of these measures.

I also made note of the content of many articles which made refer-
ence to motives or which quoted victims of crimes. Also noted were the
descriptions of the criminals or alleged criminals. From this I drew
comparisons of differential treatment by the media in portraying men and

women offenders.

 

12

in national and international crimes to men's is ludicrous.) Tables
(which appear in later discussions) were constructed from these data to
draw comparisons between media treatment of men and women on several

of these measures.

I also made note of the content of many articles which made refer-
ence to motives or which quoted victims of crimes. Also noted were the
descriptions of the criminals or alleged criminals. From this I drew
comparisons of differential treatment by the media in portraying men and

women offenders.

 

I

IV: PORTRAYAL OF THE WOMAN OFFENDER

Within the academic sphere, explanations of why women commit crimes
have undergone several transformations since the first theorizing by
Cesare Lombroso in 1894. Critiques of both past and present theories
are offered in the discussion below. An overall theoretical picture is
presented, so that one is able to view the media portrayal in the same
light as the portrayal contained in more academic theoretical sources.

In the last half of this section I will concentrate on the media
portrayal of the female offender. Many of the assumptions found in the
theoretical works are also found in media explanations. It is also

shown that the media portray male and female criminals differently.

Academic Portrayal

In the field of criminology, few works have been written which
focus solely on the woman offender. Dorie Klein has done an important
critical review of this traditional literature in her article "The
Etiology of Female Crime" (1973). Below is a brief summary of her anal-
ysis. Simon and Adler (each writing in 1975, after Klein's article)
are guilty of making many of the same assumptions as their predecessors.
Their works are also criticized. Suggestions for developing a new
theory of female criminal behavior are also given.

The critique given by Klein centers around shared assumptions about
the nature of women given by all the traditional theorists. The assump-

tions, she states, are sexist, classist and racist. These assumptions

13

L».

14

are central to the major theories proposed by Lombroso, Thomas, Freud
and Pollack:

The writers see criminality as the result of individual

characteristics that are only peripherally affected by

economic, social and political forces. These character-

istics are of physiological or psychological nature and

are uniformly based on implicit or explicit assumptions

about the inherent nature of women. This nature is uni-

versal, rather than existing within a specific historical

framework. (Klein, 1973:4)

Since a criminal act is an individual action, the emphasis then
turns to finding a criminal and non-criminal type of person. This is
where the traditional theorists diverge but one readily sees the common
thread among them all. "Whether their problems are biological, psycho-
logical or sociological, the point is always to return them to their
roles" (Klein, l973:5). In each case, Klein maintains the theorists
explain criminality among women by pointing out that they are drifting
into the masculine sphere. This is viewed as a perversion or rebellion
against their natural feminine roles which do not normally encompass
criminal behavior:

In setting hegemonic standards of conduct for all women,

the theorists define femininity, which they equate with

healthy femaleness, in classist, racist and sexist terms

using their sexuality to justify what is often in reality

merely a defense of the existing order. (Ibid.)

These theorists (Lombroso, Thomas, Freud, Pollack) assume that upper
class women embody the highest expression of femininity, that women are
inherently inferior to men and that developmentally white men are the
most superior and non-white females the most inferior.

Lombroso and Ferrero (in 1894) were the first to explore the crim-
inal and non-criminal types among women using a biological determinist
model. They felt that criminal activity was a result of an atavism, or

survival of a "primitive" trait in an individual. Traits which were

l5

indicative of this evolutionary throwback were such things as moles,

dark hair, "virile" crania, and the like. Klein points out that Lombroso
and Ferrero specifically reject the notion that a condition could be the
result rather than a cause or indicator of criminal activity, for example,
obesity in prostitutes. Certain "atavistic" characteristics are racial
characteristics of southern Italians or Sicilians (like dark hair).

Klein (l973:7) points out "that his methodology and conclusion
have long been successfully discredited", also, criticisms of Lombroso's
theory are standard material for any introduction to criminology text-
book. But myths about the sexes, evident in the work by Lombroso and
Ferrero, have not been analysed. One such notion concerns women's
physiological immobility and psychological passivity, later elaborated
by Thomas, Freud and others. Also, Lombroso develops the notion of
women's amorality (criminal and non-criminal alike), i.e., they are
cold, calculating and deceitful. "This is developed by Thomas (1923),
who describes women's manipulation of the male sex urge for ulterior
purposes; by Freud (1933), who sees women as avenging their lack of
penis on men; and by Pollack (1959), who depicts women as inherently
deceitful" (ibid.).

W.I. Thomas was the next major theorist of female crime. His
theory integrated physiological, psychological and social structural
factors. These works, ng_§pg_Society (1907) and Ihg_Unadjusted Girl
(1923) were a great improvement over strictly biological explanations
but still, like Lombroso and Ferrero, they were based upon biological
assumptions about the nature of women. "Maleness is 'katabolic', the
animal force which is destructive of energy and allows men the possi-

bility of creative work through this outward flow. Femaleness is

l6

'anabolic', analogous to a plant which stores energy, and is motionless
and conservative" (Klein, 1973:11). Thomas further states that this
dichotomy is most developed in the more "civilized" races, due to the
greater differentiation of sex roles. But as Klein notes, "This state-
ment ignores hard physical work done by poor white women at home and in
the factories and offices in 'civilized' countries, and accepts a rul-
ing-class definition of femininity" (ibid.).

Thomas (1923) closely links morality to legality from the stand-
point of maintaining social order:

Morality as applied to men has a larger element of the

contractual, representing the adjustment of his activities

to those of society . . . morality . . . in connection with

women shows less the contractual and more of the personal,

representing her adjustment to men . . . . (Klein, 1973:13)
It follows then that men and women are guided by different codes:

Morality, in the most general sense, represents the code

under which activities are best carried on and is worked

out in the school, and men are intelligent enough to real-

ize that neither women nor children have passed through

this school. It is on this account that man is merciless

to women from the standpoint of personal behavior, yet he

exempts her from anything in the way of contractual moral-

ity, or views her defections in this regard with allowance

and even with amusement. (ibid.).
Klein points out that since women are in marginal position in the pro-
ductive sphere of exchange of commodities which is outside the home,
they in turn occupy a marginal position in regard to "contractual" law
which regulates relations of property and production. This perhaps gives
us a clue as to why the men and women are treated differently in the
criminal justice system. What is viewed as "chivalrous" treatment of
women may actually be based on an assumption that women are not a threat
to property. Third World women do not embrace traditional female roles;

they, then, are viewed as a threat and are not granted this "chivalrous"

l7

treatment. [Note: in 1976, 70.5% of the incarcerated women in Michigan
were non-white (Boehm, 1976).]

Thomas is partially responsible for a popular practice in correc-
tions today. Thomas felt that a problem that societies must face, or
more specifically institutions, is to give individuals proper defini-
tions of the situations and ”right" attitudes. This illustrates an
important shift in views from merely protecting society to rehabilitat-
ing people by adjusting them through resocialization. In Thomas's view,
when dealing with a woman who has committed a crime, one must help her
reembrace her female role.

Thomas also argues that middle class women commit fewer crimes
because their sense of morality sublimates their natural desire and,
as a result, they behave well. Poor women are viewed as amoral. They
are not objectively driven to crime, rather they long for the excite-
ment and new experience of crime. Yet Thomas still sees these actions
as related to femininity; they are just acting out illegally. "Thomas
uses a market analogy to female virtue: good women keep their bodies as
capital to sell in matrimony for marriage and security, whereas bad
women 353$; their bodies for excitement" (Klein, 1973:15).

Sigmund Freud (1933), like Lombroso, Ferrero, and Thomas, developed
a theory of the female criminal based on biological beliefs about the
nature of women. Freud assumes feminine traits can be traced back to
a woman's feelings of inferiority rooted in her sex organs which are
felt to be inferior (she lacks a penis). A deviant woman is someone
who is attempting to be a man. Once again, the task for those dealing
with the criminal is to adjust her to the sex role from which she is

straying. Like Thomas's view, this view finds the individual the cause

18

of the behavior and therefore suggests individual change rather than
social change as the remedy.

Freud makes assumptions about femininity which have race and class
bias; he says nature has determined woman's destiny through "beauty,

charm, and sweetness. A woman should not be subject to the competitive
world rather should withdraw to the calm of the home as wives and
mothers. But as Klein (1973:18) observes, "Only upper and middle class
women could possibly enjoy lives as sheltered darlings."

Freud influenced others who sought to explain female criminality
with concepts of sexual maladjustment and neurosis. Klein (1973:18-19)
points out that "psychological factors would be used to explain criminal
activity and social, economic and political factors would be ignored.
Explanation would seek to be universal, and historical possibilities of
change would be refuted."

After a lull of many years, Otto Pollack (1950) wrote The Criminal-
ity_gf_Women. His position is that women commit as many crimes as men
but they are hidden crimes. These hidden crimes exist because of the
nature of women based on assumed physiological factors:

Man must achieve erection in order to perform the sex act

and will not be able to hide his failure. His lack of pos-

itive emotion in the sexual sphere must become overt to the

partner, and pretense of sexual response is impossible for

him, if it is lacking. Woman's body, however, permits such

pretense to a certain degree and lack of orgasm does not pre-

vent her ability to participate in the sex act. (Klein,
1973:12) w

Like Freud, Pollack reduces a woman's nature to her sexuality. POllack
"finds women inherently more capable of manipulation accustomed to being
sly, passive and passionless. As Thomas suggests, women can use sex
for ulterior purposes" (Klein, 1973:27). It is this deceitful nature

which makes them particularly skilled at crime.

_.1

19

According to Pollack, roles played by women (e.g. domestics, house-
wives, nurses) give them the opportunity to commit undetectable crimes.
The kinds of crime reflect their nature; hence shoplifting is attributed
to a neurosis or sexual psychological factors rather than to economic
causes. While Freud viewed all female crime as masculine, Pollack
differentiates between masculine and feminine crimes for women. Crimes
with a ”tendency toward" economic motives that involve overt action,
like robbery or burglary, are masculine; and those crimes involving
sexual activity, such as luring men as bait, are feminine crimes.

Pollack believed that the chivalry in the criminal justice system
is another way in which women's crime is hidden (most likely he was
influenced by Thomas here):

He assumes that there is chivalry in the criminal justice

system that is extended to the women who come in contact

with it. Yet the women involved are likely to be poor and

Third World women or white middle-class women who have

stepped outside the definitions of femininity to become

hippies or political rebels, and chivalry is not likely to

be extended to them. Chivalry is a racist and classist

concept founded on the notion of women as "ladies" which

applies only to wealthy white women and ignores the double

sexual standard . . . . These "ladies", however, are the

least likely women to ever come in contact with the criminal

justice system in the first place. (Klein, 1973:22)

Klein, in summary, points out the traditional theorists have looked
for biological and psychological explanations for female criminal be-
havior. Although they differ in the specifics of their theories, they
are all based on stereotypic notions of the nature of women. Each views
female criminals as having stepped beyond their natural feminine roles.
The individual criminal becomes the focus of the problem rather than
larger societal or economical factors which might result in activity.

In 1975, two new books on the woman offender hit the academic

circles. Simon's Women Egg Crime and Adler's Sisters jp_Crime (also

-.

20

popular in the public market) attempt to explain women's increased in-
volvement in crime in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Each accepts
the increase as real, and entertains the notion that the women's libera-
tion movement has come bearing on the rise in female crime rates. It

is important -- given the criticisms Klein offered with regard to ear-
lier theorists -- to ask if these two theories are adequate and if the
explanations avoid the biases of sex, class and race prejudice.

Adler, a self-proclaimed expert on the woman offender, focuses on
the recent upward trend in female crime rates, labels it "the rise of
the new female criminal," and places blame on the women's movement.

Her theory is based on the Unifonn Crime Reports, a source of data not
available to earlier theorists like Thomas. These statistics show a
tremendous rise in arrests for women since 1960. (See Table 1) Central
to her argument is the idea that the "60's 'virilized'" (terminology
similar to Lombroso's "virile crania") a previously docile female pop-
ulation. Adler maintains that female behavior is becoming increasingly
masculinized as a result of women's rejection of traditional roles (note
the echo of Freud in this line of argument) in social as well as, crim-
inal contexts. This masculinization, thereby, increases the frequency
and variety of criminal activity by women. "Women are committing more
crimes than ever before. These crimes involve a greater degree of

violence" (Adler, l975z3).

21

Table l
1974 Women as Percentage of Total Arrests in U.S.

Percent in Percent Change

Crime 1974 From 1960
murder and non-negligent homocide 15.3% +116.l%
forcible rape (x) (x)
robbery 7.2% +305.7%
aggravated assault 14.3% +l33.7%
burglary 5.5% +245.9%
larceny 32.2% +404.0%
motor vehicle theft 6.5% +161.6%
other 16.0% + 72.0%

Source: 1974 Uniform Crime Report

It is difficult to pinpoint exactly how Adler believes the libera-
tion movement has affected female criminality. She interviewed women
prisoners and concluded that they, in effect, recoiled in horror that
they should be seen as a part of the movement. From this she concluded
that these women are not feminists. These women held very traditional
views about the nature of roles of women. Yet later she argues that
these "new" female offenders are shedding traditional roles. Indirectly,
she sees the women's movement as constructing the consciousness of "new
feminism" that is a general awareness of women's rights. This awareness
and resulting broadening options has led to women taking a job or going
back to school after marriage. Women have been able to develop their
abilities and increase their opportunities. "It [the new feminism]
describes the women who have concluded that prostitution and shoplifting
are not their style: embezzlement, robbery and assaults are more con-
genial to their self-image" (Adler, 1975:27).

Adler like the traditional theorists, places much of the responsi-
bility for criminal behavior upon the individual. The offender is out

of control, while others are constructively utilizing the opportunities

‘-

22

stemming from the movement. But the woman offender's life is in disar-
ray thanks to the "new feminism.” Adler's psychosocial theory again
overemphasizes the individual's ability or inability to accept the legal
limits or roles whether they are traditional or expanding. This has
given many people reason to discredit the women's movement because of
its inevitable consequences. Adler, like many of her traditional pre-
decessors, overlooks or ignores the major influence of economic motives.
Her unicausal explanation of women's liberation destroying traditional
sex roles neglects the fact that there may be more pressure on women to
support themselves and their children than they have had in the past.
Her concentration on the current "rise" offers little explanation of
past increases (during the mid-1940's) and decreases (about 1947-1960)
in women's crime.

Simon also feels women's liberation has made some profound changes
in women's participation in crime:

If one assumes that the changes in women's roles, in their

perceptions of self, and in their desire for expanded hori-

zons that began in the latter part of the sixties will not

be abated, whether by external events such as a major eco-

nomic depression or by internal processes whereby women

examine their situation and decide that their happiness

lies in the traditional pursuits of homemaking, wifely

companionship and motherhood, then we would expect that

one of the major by-products of the women's movement will

be a higher proportion of women who pursue careers in

crime. (Simon, l975:l)
She, like Adler, predicts further rise in the number and types of crimes
committed. She also argues that women who engage in crime with men
will not continue to play subservient roles such as driving the getaway
car or acting as a lure or bait. Contrary to Adler, Simon argues

women's participation in violent crimes has not increased and will not

increase:

‘

23

The reasoning here is that women's involvement in such acts

typically arises out of the frustration, the subservience,

and the dependency that have characterized the traditional

female role . . . when women can no longer contain their

frustrations and their anger, they express themselves by

doing away with the cause of their condition, most often a

man, sometimes a child. As women's employment and educa-

tional opportunities expand, their feeling of being victim-

ized and exploited will decrease, and their motivation to

kill will become muted. (Simon, l975:2)

She paints a rather rosy picture for women who enter the labor market
and ignores the potentially stressful condition of a competitive society
outside the home. Women also face other sources of frustration and
hardships. They enter into an occupationally segregated labor market
with a large wage gap between the sexes. Work for men does not neces-
sarily allow them to vent their frustration, rather, they are more like-
ly to release those frustrations at home.

Simon views women's increased participation in crime as related to
the new opportunities generated by the women's movement. In the past,
she argues, women have been excluded from illegitimate opportunities.
"As women become more liberated from hearth and home and become more
involved in full-time jobs, they are more likely to engage in types of
crimes for which their occupations provide them with the greatest oppor-
tunities” (Simon, l975:l). So as women enter white collar jobs they
will be given the opportunity to commit white collar crimes. Simon
assumes women are leaving "the hearth and the home" to commit these
crimes. In her discussion, she neglects women offenders who do not
have jobs or who do not have the skills needed to seek out new opportu-
nities.

The ACLU denounced Simon's findings because of "obsolete and in-
complete data" (ACLU News, l978:l). Simon's tie of the rise of economic

crimes to increased economic independence and job opportunities is

24

tenuous. She fails to look at the demographic data (like marital status,
children, education attainment, or type of employment) of those women.
The ACLU report suggests that of those women who are incarcerated, most
were working at unskilled or semi-skilled, low paying jobs. (It is also
important to note that those women who serve time are "selected" from

all those convicted of a crime and not necessarily representative of

all women offenders). The ACLU report also expresses concern for public
reaction to Simon's analysis could be:

Her attempt to draw a correlation between women's economic

crimes and the women's movement has been promoted as a con—

clusion . . . which it is not. It is speculation tinged

with sensationalism. The tragedy is that this report may

well be used to formulate arguments against employment of

women and for incarcerating women in greater numbers.

(ACLU News, l978:l)

Adler and Simon both seem to be explaining female criminality as
some sort of reaction to altered situations caused by changing opportu-
nities and roles as a result of the women's movement. According to this
line of argument, while the women's movement has brought many benefits
to women, it unfortunately has thrown some women into turmoil. It be-.
comes an individual problem for women who cannot control their impulses
when given increased opportunities. They must then be restrained and
taught how to act within the legal limits. Except for opportunity
structures, Adler and Simon both ignore all other factors outside the
individual which may account for female criminality.

While these two women have made an important step in looking at
some structural factors related to criminal behavior, they have not
broken themselves free from elitist assumptions. They have changed the

possibile motives of women offenders, yet have not ouestioned the under-

lying assumptions. Klein, in her concluding remarks, recognized the

25

inadequacies in these conventional theories and therefore asks that
further work be done from a radical perspective with feminist roots.

Richard Quinney offers one such radical perspective, however, he
lacks feminist roots. While offering a critical look at the criminal
justice field, he fails to break with theorists like Thomas and Freud,
when it comes to assumptions and expectations regarding the sexes:

A good part of the difference between adult male and female

involvement in criminally defined activity is a consequence

of the conventional adult sex roles in our society. Men are

expected to be active and aggressive; women are expected to

be more passive. (Quinney, 1975:100)
To explain women's criminal involvement (or increased involvement) in
terms of sex roles does not, perhaps, get at the large part of the
problem. According to Weis, increases in female crime may "reflect a
depressed economy and concomitant widespread unemployment, particularly
among women." It may also reflect the “changed material conditions of
consumption over the past two decades," (Weis, 1976:25) which then
presents additional pressures on women to be able to exercise purchasing
power.

Part of Kelin's conclusion is appropriate here. This is her hope
for a new direction in understanding female criminality (Klein, 1973:28).

The basic assumptions and technocratic concerns of these

writers have produced work that is sexist, racist and

classist; assumptions that have served to maintain a re-

pressive ideology with it extensive apparatus of control.

To do a new kind of research on women and crime -- one that

has feminist roots and a radical orientation -- it is nec-

essary to understand the assumptions made by the traditional

writers and to break away from them. Work that focuses on

human needs, rather than those of the state, will require

new definitions of criminality, women, the individual and
her/his relation to the state. (Klein, 1973:28)

 

26

Media Portrayal

 

The previous section reviewed the theory of women offenders as it
has been transformed over the past hundred years. Conventional crimi-
nology and media often reflect the dominant ideology. The media some-
times draw directly on the ideas of social scientists and other experts;
therefore, one may expect similarity between the academic view and media
portrayal.

Klein has shown the inadequacies of assumptions of traditional
theorists. Shover and Norland (1978:115), argue that empirical academic
studies of women offenders have the same sorts of problems which Klein
has revealed for theoretical works:

One of the ways in which criminological work has been in-

fluenced by stereotypic beliefs about the sexes is seen in

the uncritical acceptance of the reality of certain sex-

linked personality differences. These are treated as in-

dependent variables and then alleged uncritically to be

differentially related to patterns of criminal involvement.

(Shover and Norland, 1978:115)

They too, are curious about the notion that women's crime is under-
going transformations:

There has been much speculation about the allegedly changing

nature and volume of female crime. Most of this work has

sought to link these changes directly to assumed changes in

the nature of gender roles in contemporary American society

. . . . Reports in the mass media have been even more alarm-

ist. (Shover and Norland, 1978:1l4)

In this section I will investigate whether the media, like academic
theorists, link changes in women's crime to the women's movement and
assumed changes in the position, roles, and activities of the sexes.

At a later point, I will offer an analysis of why the "rise of the fe-
male offender" in the media may be viewed as a construction of a social
problem.

Newspaper articles dealing with the overall question of crime

27

began to focus on women offenders during the period l970-l978. The
critical year for examining violent women offenders seems to be 1975.
Typical headlines for these articles include: ". . . Lib, City Pres-

sures the Reasons" (Detroit Free Press, hereon abbreviated DEE, 4/4/74,

 

4C), "Stealing for Children or Ripping Off Society" (053, 7/7/74, 4C),
or "Why do Women Turn to Violent Crime?" (DEE, 5/2/75, 1C). I did not
find any articles asking similar questions of male offenders (e.g. "Why
do Men Turn to Violent Crimes?"). I did find two articles which ask
why people murder (both men and women were addressed) and why they shop-
lift (found in the Finance section). Articles about Uniform Crime Re-
ports assume men's presence in criminal activity. Gender was not mem-
tioned at all in these articles on crime statistics. Women were only
mentioned in articles written on a special topic or in articles which
featured them specifically.

Women's participation in crime (especially violent crime) appears
to be news. Starting in 1971, their low profile in crime reports began
to undergo some transformation. There was a rash of articles seeking
to offer explanations about the sudden, dramatic rise in women's crime.

In the New York Times, there were 11 articles refering to the women

 

offenders, the first 2 appearing in 1971, 2 more in 1974, with the re-
maining 7 spread out over 1975 through 1978. Reflecting a similar trend,
the Detroit Free Press had 14 articles about female offenders in the

same time span. One such article appeared in the New York Times,

 

April 26, 1971. It simply stated "Women's Arrests Increase" (p.40,s.l,
c.1) in the headline and stated that arrests for women rose 23% in 1970.
A Los Angeles county sheriff was quoted, saying "The liberation of

modern women might have something to do with it." Headlines of articles

28

through 1974 point out women's increased participation: "Women Play
Growing Role in City's Crime" (053, 8/15/71, 3A), "More Women Commit
Serious Men's Crimes" (DEE, 8/6/73, 28), "Crimes by Women: Rise and
Severity are 'Astronomical!‘" (953, 4/4/74, 4C). When one reads further
one finds that women's liberation is offered to explain this phenomenon.
Other reasons were given (such as greater opportunities to commit of-
fenses) but a heated debate was not evident in 1974. In 1975, media
coverage extended to include arguments offered by those who said women's
liberation was ggt_the cause, and headlines started to reflect the de-
bate over blame: "Women's Crime is Issue at Penologists' Parley" (New.
York Times, hereon abbreviated N11, 8/24/75, 51:5), "Critics Assail
Linking Feminism with Women in Crime" (N11, 3/14/76, 48:4), "Don't Blame
Lib for Crime" (DEE, 4/8/76, 20).

In 1975, the media theme of women's crime began to change from the
simple reporting of a trend to heated controversy over the cause of this
trend. The media especially emphasized the fact that feminists were
divided on this issue, for example, by using phrases like "Adler, a
feminist herself . . . ." The media sought quotes from well known
women in the feminist community. "For Robin Morgan, a woman's libera-
tionist who was herself arrested for sitting in a New York publishing
firm, the rising female crime rate isn't all that appalling. She calls
it a "heartening sign . . . " Susan Brownmiller "admits to deriving a
certain satisfaction from the new militancy of prostitutes" (Today's
Health, 1971:49). These statements have the effect of linking women's
liberation and crime, and further swaying the reader to draw this con-
nection.

In the popular journals, there was also growing an interest in the

29

woman offender. The peak year was 1975, with seven articles appearing

in magazines with large circulation, such as Newsweek, National Review,

 

Psychology Today, and U.S. News and World Report. Titles for these

 

 

magazine articles tended, for the most part, to reflect the creativity
of the writers: "The Gentle Sex? I'd Rather Meet a Cougar!" (Today's
Health, 72:42), “The Woman's Touch" (Newsweek, 1975:35), "Women Catch-

ing up to Men in One More Field: Crime" (U.S. World and News Report,

 

1974:45), and "The Rise of the Female Crook" (Psychology Today, 1975:

 

42).
Many of the articles first point out the rise of statistics. For

example, in the Detroit Free Press, May 2, 1975, an article stated (1C,

 

c7—8):

From the 1960-1973, the number of women arrested for serious

crimes -- homocide, robberies, auto thefts, assaults -- in-

creased 277.9 percent, the FBI's Crime Index shows. Male

arrests for the same offenses went up 87.9 percent.
Such statistical citations are often accompanied with exclamation points
and adjectives such as "astronomical", "sobering figures", "skyrocket-
ing."

The majority of the articles explained the crime rise in biological,
psychological, and liberation related terms -- echoing the earlier ex-
planation seems like an updated version of Lombroso, in this case, the

argument that violent offenses by women are related to a stage of the

female menstrual cycle (San Francisco Chronicle, 8/24/78:3A). One

 

policewoman explains that women lost their inhibitions: "They don't
stay home in little white cottages anymore. A lot of women feel they
can do the same things as men, so they're out there doing them" (This
seems to be a replay of Simon's notion that women are leaving the hearth

and the home) (053, 5/6/73z28). Like Freud and Pollack, these articles

30

present the idea that women commit crimes because they want to be like
men, which assumes that crime is intrinsically a male activity. Another
variant of this interpretation appeared in this statement: "All of a
sudden, they have figured out, ‘I'm being insulted . . . ' and you have
the anger period. Hopefully, as they begin to claim their lives, more
will go through this nasty adolescent period and we'll see a peaking

off and a dropping of aggression" (Detroit Free Press, 4/4/74z4C).

 

Thomas argues that women use their sex by appealing to men's urges
for ulterior purposes. A similar line of argument reappeared in an
article in Newsweek (1975:5):

On the other hand, what women may lack in strength, they can

make up for with their own physical attributes. After a bank

holdup in Pasadena, California, recently, a teller was unable

to tell police what the female bandit looked like. The rea-

son, he explained sheepishly, was the robber wore a see-through

blouse with no bra.

In addition to the content of articles, I also gathered informa-
tion on the reporting of crime incidents. A detailed look at the mode
of reporting of crime incidents shows there has been no relative in-
crease in the actual amount of media coverage of women's crime. I ex-
pected the media to devote more coverage to women's crime while cover-
age of men's crime would remain somewhat the same. Actually, there was
increased coverage of both categories from 1970 to 1978. (See Table 2)

In looking at the amount of space devoted to reporting male or
female crimes, again virtually no difference was found over the eight
year period (See Table 3). This, too was not what I hypothesized. I
predicted that the newspaper would find that elaborated accounts of
women committing crimes would appeal to the readers. Instead, average

length varied but not in any predictable way.

I next looked at headline reference to the sex of the offenders.

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32

During the entire time span, newspaper headlines were more likely to
make reference to the sex of the offender if it was a woman than if it
was a man. Out of the 100 individual articles reporting crimes commit-
ted by a woman, 66 of them contained sex-specific clues.1 For articles
focusing on men gender was indicated only 21% of the time. This pattern
is generally apparent in the media -- presuming the male as the norm,

and the female as the special case:

The media use language in a sexist way: when a woman or girl
make the news, her sex is identified at the beginning of a
story, if possible in the headline (which reveals an assump—
tion that woman's achieving is rare). Because people are
assumed to be male unless otherwise identified, the media
have developed an extensive vocabulary to avoid repetition
of woman. The results ("Grandmother Wins Nobel Prize";
"Blonde Hijacks Airliner") convey information that would be
ludicrous if the subjects were male. (Henley and Thorne,
1975:219).

Table 3

Average Length of Article on Crime Incidents in
the Detroit Free Press (Month of May Each Year)

 

 

 

Woman Offenders Men Offenders
(Who Acted Alone or in (Who Acted Alone or in
Year Same Sex Groups)_ Same Sex Groups)
No. of No. of Ave. Art. No. of No. of Ave. Art.

Articles Sq. In. Length Articles Sg. In. Length
1970 6 109 21.8 61 1215 19.9
1971 10 151 15.1 71 1661 23.4
1972 13 366 28.2 67 2065 30.8
1973 6 72 12.0 87 1877 21.6
1974 6 129 21.5 92 1744 19.0
1975 10 233 23.3 75 1575 21.0
1976 20 503 25.2 85 1918 22.6
1977 14 414 29.6 67 1634 24.4
1978 15 347 23.1 §§_ 2030 23.1
Overall 'TT.1 23.2 77.0 22.7
Average

1

For example, gender was marked by names ("Patty") gender terms
("Girl kills Teacher") gender-linked roles ("Mother Refused Court Order")
and relationship to the victim ("Husband Killer is Arrested").

33

I looked more specifically at names. Name use in the headlines
was reserved for the most celebrated cases, usually during a trial.
For women, with one exception, the headlines gave the first name of the
woman suspect, sometimes accompanied with the last name (e.g. "Angela".
"Angela Davis", although one of the headlines said "Davis“). For men,
the newspaper typically gave the last name only, although last name was
sometimes accompanied by the first name ("Rap Brown") and once the first
name alone ("Chickie"). During the nine year period, in the month of
May 19 articles out of 100 (19%) used the woman's name in the headline
(6 first name only, 12 first and last name, 1 last name only); for men
29 out of 694 (4%) used names (1 first name only, 23 last name only, 5
first and last name). These language patterns have the effect of making
gender more salient for female than for male offenders. They also re-
flect a general pattern of claiming more intimacy with women (women are
more rapidly first-named in many contexts) than with men (Henley, 1977).

Another point of comparison is the type of offense committed by
men and women that eventually get reported by the media. The type of

offenses reported in the Detroit Free Press can be divided into three

 

groups of categories which are comparable to the Uniform Crime Reports
classifications. UCR's distinguish between violent crime (murder, forc-
ible rape, robbery and aggravated assault), prOperty crime (burglary,
larceny, and auto theft) and all other offenses (such as embezzlement,

narcotic violations, and gambling). Looking at the Detroit Free Press

 

for May 1970-1978, I used the same groups of categories to record the
most serious crime the suspect committed (for example, if a man burglar-
ized a house and raped a woman I recorded it as a violent crime). In

her discussion of the early theorists, Klein observes (1973:27):

34

Crime defined as masculine seems to mean violent, overt
crime, whereas "ladylike" crime usually refers to sexual
violations and shoplifting . . . . The economic and social
reality of crime -- the fact that poor women commit crimes,
and that most crimes for women are property offenses -- are
overlooked.

I expected to find pr0perty offenses to be overlooked in the media as
well. Table 4 below shows the comparison between FBI and newspaper

accounts of the distribution of crimes in each of these categories.

Table 4

Comparison of Percentages of Total Arrests
To Crimes Reported by Media

 

 

 

FBI Newspaper
Uniform Crime Reports Detroit Free Press
Type of Offense (1976) (1970-1978)
% of Total Arrests % of Articles
Men Women Men Women
Violent Crimes 4.5 2.9 70 62
Property Offenses 16.9 25.7 4 1
Other (e.g. drug
offenses, prostitu-
tion, etc.) 78.6 71.4 g§_ 31
100% 00% 100% 100%

It appears from the above table that the media overreports violent of-
fenses; offenses primarily economically motivated (such as larceny and
sh0plifting) are generally overlooked for both sexes in favor of the
more newsworthy items related to violence and drugs. Property offenses
are the easiest to view as purely economic in motive; the attempt is
made simply to acquire the money or goods in ways defined as illegiti-
mate. Personal offenses and crimes against the public order may also
be economically motivated yet such motives are more easily hidden. An
example is prostitution; although itzis labeled a moral offense, many

argue that economic need often motivates this offense. In spite of the

35

fact that economic offenses predominate in terms of sheer numbers, the
media as well as prominent theorists have to a large degree ignored these

crimes.

V: DISCUSSION AND CRITICAL ANALYSIS

It is increasingly important that the literature which so

confidently links criminality to gender roles should re-

ceive critical scrutiny.

Shover and Norland (1978:114)

In this section I would like to give such a critical scrutiny to
the media presentation, as Klein did with the theorists. I question
the FBI statistics, which form the basis for all claims of a rise in
female criminality, and I also suggest the possibility that this rise

is related to the developing construction of a social problem ("the rise

in female crime").

Critical Look gt_the Statistical Rise gf_the Female Offender

 

 

Many commentators rely on the uniform crime rates as a true measure
of criminal activity in a given area. These official statistics show
a 102% increase in women's arrests for the period 1960-1975 compared to
a 23% increase for men (See Table 1). Before viewing these figures and
stating with assurance that women are or are not more criminal than men,
one must look at how these statistics are compiled in order to evaluate
their meaning.

FBI statistics measure those crimes cleared by arrests. Offenses
cleared by arrests vary; murder is often solved and arrests are made,
whereas many larcenies go unsolved. Van Vecten (1942:833—847) found,
in the District of Columbia that of all the offenses known to the police

only 35.7% were cleared by arrest. One can only guess whether men and

36

37

women have an equal chance of getting arrested and whether this clear-
ance is better or worse since 1942.

It is also important to note that prior to 1960, the statistics
did not differentiate between a male or a female suspect. Starting in
1960, the practice of separating the offenders by gender was encouraged
as part of a program to revamp recording of statistics to make them
uniform. By the late '60's almost all the agencies were separating by
gender. Of course, once these agencies did separate into two categor-
ies, crimes by women showed a sharp increase (ACLU Report, l978:l).

Another point which may, when taken into consideration, influence
an interpretation of the statistics is the small absolute number of
arrests of women as compared to men. "Any increase in these small
numbers can produce huge -- and slightly misleading -- percentage in-
creases. For example, an increase from 100 arrests to 101 would be a
one percent increase, while an increase from one arrest to two would
be a 100 percent increase" (953, 8/15/7lz3A).

FBI statistics measure only those crimes handled by the police.
If one remembers, Simon predicts that as women continue to enter white
collar profession, they will commit white collar crimes (the same can
be argued for men). These crimes tend to be more invisible than the
street crimes the police handle. Once detected, they still fail to
make police statistics because such offenses are handled by state and
federal regulatory agencies.

Another important part of these statistics is the fact that it is
ultimately the police who administer the law at their discretion. This
leads one writer, Donald Black (1970) to suggest that official rates

are not a measure of "actual" deviant behavior but of "actual" social

38

control operation. So, rises and declines in crime figures reflect

the diligence of police in enforcing laws. Quinney (1975) also recog-
nizes this argument but sees the crime statistics as a "mixture" of
three factors: one, the incidence of criminality; two, the administra-
tion of criminal law; and three, societal pressure to report crime to
the public and for the police to deal with reported crimes. For example,
pressure may motivate police to crack down on prostitutes over a period
of time, or to treat these women as they would male offenders. This
attitude, "if it's equality these women want, we'll see that they get
it" (Simon, 1975:18) would not be spoken so much in the 1960's as it
would be today; it reflects a general verbal awareness of, and reaction
to feminism. This "get even" attitude may account for some of the

rise in crime statistics for women. Overall, "whether crime is in—
creasing in American society is a question that can never be answered
objectively without considering the politics of the time" (Quinney,
1975:23).

Klein and Kress (1976:41) similarly question whether there have
been real changes in criminal activity, as opposed to law enforcement
patterns:

A rise or decline in arrest rates does not necessarily in-

dicate a rise or decline in real illegal activity. It may

reflect the political situation in or growth of law enforce-

ment circles, different organization of the data, changes in

arrest categories, and altered perceptions of women offenders

by the police.

Quinney (1975) suggests that crime statistics can be manipulated
to reflect whatever various agencies or officials want them to. It
might be to the advantage of an incumbent in an official position to

use crime statistics to show that crime has decreased while s/he has

been in office. It might also be to someone's interest to show that

39

women are rapidly entering the world of crime. The ACLU's rebuttal to
Simon's work expressed concern that her argument could be used to jus-
tify not hiring women or for incarcerating more and more women. "Crime
rates, therefore, are used to justify or investigate a multitude of polit-
ical (including social and economic) interests" (Quinney, 1975:23).

It must be remembered that while one cannot make a case that there
has been no rise at all in rates of female crime, one must critically
examine the data given to us by the FBI. An open question is left as

to the claims of a rise; it is not a fixed or unquestionable trend.

Social Construction gf_the Phenomenon gf_thg_"Rise gf_Women Offenders"

 

The assertion that crime is increasing cannot be made without sta-
tistical proof to support the claim. Questions about the validity and
reliability of crime statistics cast doubt on general claims that there
has been a sharp increase in rates of female crime. A self-fulfilling
prophecy may be involved in media reports: belief that women criminals
are more prevalent may increase the attention paid to women offenders.
In the previous section it was argued that the statistics do not give ’
conclusive proof that there has been a real increase (or at least an
accurate account of an increase) in women's participation in crime. We
might look at the attention given to women offenders as, in part, a
construction of a social problem.

Conceptions of crime are conveyed to the general population by
television, newspapers, and magazines. Media presentation of crime,
whether fiction or reality, helps shape the sense of reality of viewers
and/or readers.

F.J. Davis (1952) demonstrated that reports of crime in each of

four Colorado newspapers varied independently of police statistics.

40

Later, in a public opinion poll, residents were asked to estimate the
extent of crime in the state. The results of the poll indicated that
popular conception of crime reproduced the newspaper's account of crime
rather than the amount shown in the official statistics. The media
affect our estimates of crime frequency, and our interpretation of
crime in general.

The present media portrayal of the woman offender plays an impor-
tant part in how the public views women offenders. In keeping with the
dominant ideology, this portrayal focuses on the individual as the
problem and not on structural causes. Psychological motivations and
the inability of the female offender to embrace her "natural" roles are
cited as reasons for the turn to crime. These same beliefs are held
by academicians, the media and, one would surmise, by the general
public as well.

Marcia Millman (1975:252-253) details popular beliefs about the
woman offender:

The belief is that it is only men who take a serious stand

against society and its conventions (at a time when such a

stand may have the admirable qualities of heroic bravery,

individuality, and/or loyalty to one's oppressed group).

If women occasionally become socially deviant, their devi-

ance is understood as only secondary and politically un-

inspired. It is derivative of their acting like a woman:

falling in love (with a deviant man); being a little too

out of control of their emotions (becoming mentally ill);

using their sexuality exploitively but not that differently

from other women (becoming a prostitute); or exhibiting

some other neurotic weakness or impulsiveness common to

women (as becoming a shoplifter).

This narrow portrayal (which prevailed in the media reports I examined)
uses gender stereotypes to explain crime among women, but implies men
commit crime rationally and even in protest against a part of society

which oppresses them.

41

The media portrayed Patty Hearst and Angela Davis not as having
commitment to a political cause but as having fallen in love with de-
viant men whom they then tried to please. Angela Davis' love letters
were quoted in the press, implying that she was motivated or even blind-
ed by love. The notion that women criminals may be a little out of
control of their emotions is illustrated by a front page article in

the Detroit Free Press (5/30/77:1A) reporting that a woman was arrested

 

58 times because she would not refrain from seeing a man she wanted to
marry (the feeling was not mutual). Media reports about the woman who
wore a see-through blouse with no bra (Newsweek, 1975:35) or the woman
who refused to close her house of prostitution (DEE, 5/1/70:3A) are
also anchored in stereotypes of female behavior. The idea that women
offenders are impulsive is conveyed by the headlines "She tripped,

He laughed, He died"; it was as simple as that impulsive action (053,
5/7/74:5C).

For men, headlines hardly reflected a serious stand (as suggested
by Millman). Rather, headlines tended to remain strictly descriptive
of the offense committed rather than offering clues to their individual
nature, for example, "Murder Suspect Arrested" (DEE, 5/2/77:3A),
"Campus Bomber Found Guilty" (DEE, 5/7/77:12C), and "Suburbanite Ar-
raigned in Silver Theft“ (DEE, 5/17/77leB).

An additional stereotype has recently emerged. Adler (1975) has
been instrumental in creating the popular belief that women offenders
are trying to emulate men. She maintains that women are committing
more violent crimes and crimes which are defined as traditionally male.

Increased interest in the woman offender, reflected in the rise

of special articles, does not seem to be related to conclusive evidence

42

that there has been a rise in woman perpetrated crimes. In general, a
crime wave's appearance in the media may or may not have any relation

to actual police statistics. Mark Fishman (1978) analyses how the media
construct crime waves. Fishman contends that newspeople pick up "themes"
from the items that come over the police wire or teletype. His notion
of themes of potential crime waves is useful: "A news theme is a uni-
fying concept. It presents a specific new event, or a number of such
events, in terms of some broader concept" (1978:534). For example, a
woman who robs a bank can be used to illustrate the rise of a new breed
of violent women criminals. "A news theme allows journalists to recast
an incident as an instance of something" (ibid.). The presence of a
theme leads to a differential reporting of some crimes over others. So
the media is more apt to report violent crimes over white-collar crime
simply because of its dramatic nature.

Changing crime themes can be found in media reports about Bernadine
Dohrn. In 1970, she was mentioned in an article which described how
radicals now dominated the FBI most wanted list. Several years later,
she was used as an example of a woman who now occupied the FBI most
wanted list. Dohrn's activities were related to two different crime
themes, first militant radicals, then violent women. When the first theme
died due, it seems, to a decline in incidents to support the theme
(the decline of violent radical political activity in the early '70's)
Bernadine Dohrn then became the subject of another theme at a time when
others (e.g. Emily Harris, Angela Davis, and the Manson women) were also
making national news and when the phenomenon of the rise of female crime
was getting media attention.

Various types of media share crime themes. Newspaper and television

43

reporters constantly read, view, and draw ideas from their competition.
The media also share wire services. This encourages a certain amount
of consistency of reporting and shared perspectives. A theme becomes
entrenched in the reporting of the media organizations when it appears
time and again, and journalists view a certain incident as news in re-
lationship to the theme. Fishman (1978:537) draws on Sacks' concept of
"consistency rule" to describe the operation of crime themes: "every
crime incident that can be seen as an instance of the theme, will be
seen and reported as such." This consistency rule then allows journal-
ists to see a particular incident as another case of women committing a
violent crime rather than seeing it as an expression of anything else.
This consistency rule not only unites reporters around crime themes
but also encourages readers and viewers to embrace the same explanations.
"Each new use of this consistency rule reestablishes the rule" (Fishman,
1978:537). It may be that journalists and readers/viewers alike focus
their attention on items which reinforce a theme or belief. A shared
definition of women offenders may have been shaped in much this way.
Several articles tried to interpret such women as Patty Hearst and
Angela Davis as example of the new female criminal, thus helping to
create a new crime theme, which was shared among news organizations.
The direction of spread is unclear; it may be that "yellow sheets" were
the first to develop the new crime theme and to report specific cases
as instances. The eventual consequences of this is that with a large
percentage of readers seeing one or more of these sources, the readers
begin also to believe that there are more women committing more crime,
therefore there must be truth in the general claim that there is a rise

in women offenders.

44

Uncritical acceptance of a theme leads quickly to its spread:

At this point, when a crime theme is beginning to spread

through more and more media organizations, the "reality"

of the theme is confirmed for the media organizations who

first reported it. They now see others using the theme.

Moreover, as the theme persists, news organizations already

using the theme will not hesitate to report new instances

of it because these instances confirm their past news judge-

ment that "this thing really is a type of crime happening

now." Thus, each use of the theme confirms and justifies

its prior uses. (Fishman, 1978:537-8)

The notion that women are increasingly involved in violent crime was
spread and confirmed by increased news reporting of incidents of women
committing violent crimes. Yet, as shown earlier, this trend has weak
statistical confirmation, since that main evidence seems to come from
the FBI statistics. In 1975 when Simon criticized claims of a rise in
violent crimes by women, the crime theme did not disappear; rather the
theme transformed into controversy over women's involvement in violent
crime. The same is true of the other crime theme that women are in-
volved in more crime overall.

Just as police are instrumental in producing crime statistics, they
are also instrumental in producing crime waves. In most urban cities
the media rely on the police wire or teletype for their supply of crime
incidents. What comes over the wire reflects the crime reporting prac-
tices of the law enforcement agencies. Too many incidents occur in a
day for journalists to concern themselves with, so they tend to rely on
summaries from the police. The police officer who transmits particular
crimes to reporters selects material that s/he might think the media
would be interested in. The media are presented with an already tailored
version of the previous day's criminal activity. For example, journal-

ists are typically provided "a heavy and steady diet of street crimes"

(Fishman demonstrated that robberies, burglaries, shootings, stabbings,

45

and other assaults compose 66% of the items coming over the wire much
higher than their actual proportion of all reported crimes) (Fishman,
1978:539).

It was suggested earlier that the police may be increasingly sensi-
tized to the idea that women commit crimes; as a result police may be
arresting women more often and sending that information over the wire.
Police may possibly feel the media are more interested in women's
crimes -— and especially violent crimes -- because of the crime themes
that are shared now by the police, media and the public.

In short, then, statistical, academic and media reports of women's
crime have all undergone some alteration in the past decade. All of
these reports have been influenced by traditional beliefs about the
nature of women. Women offenders still pose a challenge to those tra-
ditional beliefs. Feminism may or may not resulted in any drastic
changes in women's behavior; one should also explore the possibility
that the women's movement has influenced beliefs and attitudes of those
(e.g. police, judges) in positions to define women's behavior as deviant.

Weis (1976:19) stated that "the new female criminal seems to be a
product of the collective imaginations, perhaps wishes, of misguided
observers and analysts." He points out that the theme of the "new fe-
male offender" is not based on actual incidents of crime, rather the
notion was created by experts on the subject. Fishman suggests that
" . . journalists have another kind of news to report: the responses
of politicians, police and other officials" (1978:540). Politicians,
police, and others found an arena to show their "expertise" but Weis
claims incompetence and wishful thinking was aired. From the start of

public attention to the phenomenon of female crime, experts abounded

46

in explaining women offenders. When the subject first began to frequent-
ly in the press, articles were popular arenas for officials to interpret
this rather new phenomenon. Police and prison officials were often
interviewed and quoted. Starting in 1972, the controversy began to
center around the "true" experts, like Adler -- an Associate Professor
of Criminal Justice at Rutgers and a female criminality consultant to

the United Nations. One may recall the rather modest first article on

the phenomenon on women offenders in the New York Times in April, 1971.

 

This one paragraph article stated women's crimes rose 23% in Los Angeles
county and a Los Angeles sheriff was quoted as saying "the liberation
of modern women might have something to do with it" (N11, 4/26/71:40A).
Since 1972, this notion has turned into a large controversy.

Just as officials can contribute to a crime theme or crime wave so
can officials use their powers to deny an "unwanted crime wave"
(Fishman, 1978:534). An example of this may be Michigan State Univer-
sity officials and police who systematically refuse to acknowledge the
rape and assault problem on the University campus, attempting to maintain
a favorable image of the University. It is in the administration's
interests to deny such allegations. In contrast, it would not be in
any official's interest, such as police or federal administrators, to
deny a general rise in women offenders. Those denying the relationship
between the women's movement and women's crime (such as feminists and
prison supervisors) are those who rather powerless to end such state-
ments. Many women active in the movement were placed in the position
of defending the claim that there was no such relationship, and these
women often lacked expert status.

Fishman (1978) offers a theory of crime waves in the media. Central

47

to this argument is the notion of a developing theme applied to specific
cases (which are interpreted as specific "instances" of the theme).
Spector and Kitsuse (1977) propose a more general theory of the construc-
tion of crime waves.

The central premise of Spector and Kitsuse's argument is that social
problems are not simply problematic conditions "out there" but are bound
up in what people think they are. When one studies social problems, one
is actually studying claims-making activities. "Thus, we define social
problems as the activities of individual or groups making assertions of
grievances and claims with respect to some putative condition" (Spector
and Kitsuse, 1977:75). The focal concern in studying social problems is
"to account for the emergence, nature, and maintenance of claims-making
and responding activities" (Spector and Kitsuse, 1977:76). Claims-mak-
ing lends itself to being documented and analyzed from a sociological
perspective.

Like Fishman, Spector and Kitsuse focus on statements given by
authorities and experts on a given subject. Such experts are often
instrumental in defining a problematic situation. It is they who are
more likely to attempt to call attention to a situation which they find
a matter of concern, and to be able to mobilize institutions to do
something about this problematic situation. 50, if authorities feel
that the women offender problem is getting out of hand, they then might
ask the courts to take a firmer stance when dealing with women who come
before the bench.

Fishman, and Spector and Kitsuse all argue that what becomes im-
portant in looking at a condition is the allegations made about it.

The validity of the statements made by authorities and experts (e.g.

48

those who claim women's crime has increased) is difficult and often
impossible to check because statistical data are also shaped by social
definitions. What j§_important is how these statements find arenas in
the press and how they are developed into themes which are reestablished,
reinforced, and perpetuated whenever they are used.

In combining the ideas of Fishman, Spector and Kitsuse, one might
propose the following as the general process by which the phenomenon of
the rise of the woman offender was constructed. First of all, changes
in police reporting of statistics accounted for the first increase in
the arrests of women. Before 1960, statistics on crime committed by
men and women were not kept separate. Between 1960-1970, police agen-
cies started separating these arrest statistics into male/female cate-
gories, a separation practice which led to an increase in statistics of
women arrests during these years. In the late 1960's, the women's move-
ment became an increasingly visible force, gaining much media attention.
The media publicized an increase in women's crime using the statistics
provided by the police. Authorities (e.g. Adler) made claims linking
the movement with the increase in crime. The theme was established
and continues to reappear, changing form slightly and now emcompassing
a whole controversy surrounding the women's movement and women's crime.
The controversy and the women's movement evoked a change in attitude
among the police officials (i.e., "We'll give them equality") who then
arrested more women and claimed they treat women the same way as men.
The police are possibly sensitized to women offenders as a by-product
of the women's movement. This results in more women being arrested.

The rule is reestablished, restated and the construction of the "problem"

continues.

VI: CONCLUSION

If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Laidies
we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold
ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or
Representation.

Abigail Adams, 1776

(Feminist Papers, 1975:10-1)

 

This thesis contests the notion that the women's movement has been
directly responsible for the increase in women's crime. Instead the
"rise of female crime" is seen as the construction of a social problem,
and more specifically as a theme in the media which emerged in the last
decade. I contend that the nature of the changing statistics of female
crime and the media reports reflect perceived challenges to traditional
beliefs about the nature of women. Strong evidence is not available to
support either side but one must be skeptical and give "critical scru-
tiny" to those who make a confident link between the women's movement
and variety and frequency of crime.

The relationship between the rise in women's crime and the women's
movement is at best tenuous. The claim is based on incomplete and un-
reliable data. Yet, the perpetuation of this claim is a curious phenom-
enon. The confident assertion of a cause and effect relationship be-
tween the two must be critiqued and studied further. The myth of the
"rise of the female offender" must be reexamined and seen within the
political context of women in this decade. One might well begin with
the claim that liberation has been achieved and women's crime is a

by-product of that freedom.
49

50

It is not a coincidence that women are being incarcerated in in-
creasing numbers and that this is happening when women in general are
seeking more control of their lives. There does seem to be one demon-
strable relationship the women's movement and women offenders -- more
women are being carried further through the criminal justice system
than they have been in the past. Claiming partial control of their
life via the movement (by women most likely to benefit from the women's
movement -- middle class professionals) may lead to higher more re-
strictive forms of being controlled (such as in state supporting insti-
tutions). Henley (1977) states that the mildest form of control will be
used to maintain order. Some women are aware they are being controlled
by the subtler forms of control like internalized controls or verbal and
non-verbal communication. It may be that in response to their awareness,
women now warrant the next stage of repressive control at an institu-
tional level, that is increased retention in state operated institutions.
It must be also noted that while the unwritten change in policy is im-
plemented, a class priviledge is evident. Hence, those in power are
taking out their antagonism disproportionately on the lower class, who
make up the bulk of the prison population.

A new understanding of battered women is being taught, claimed, and
studied. Instead of trying to find what is wrong with individual
women, many are asking about the situation in which these women find
themselves. Similarly, future studies of women who commit crimes should
inquire into their situations. In other words, future studies should
turn their attention away from the individual and towards more struc-
tural factors. Temporary insanity was the main line of defense in the

trial of a battered woman who killed her ex-husband. It was the feeling

51

of many of her supporters that perhaps her actions were the sign of
sanity. Her response was normal given the situation. Similarly, when
women commit crimes (whether such offenders are increasing or decreasing
in number) it may be a normal response or a statement about their eco-
nomic and political situation. This belief has been extended much more
to male than to female offenders (See Millman quote p. 40).

Considering the disadvantaged economic position of women and the
fact that women have had almost no representation in the making of laws
in the past 200 years, one wonders why more women are not criminals.

The subtle forms of control are, after all, the most effective in
keeping women in place.

Some final questions need to be asked when looking at women offend-
ers in the media. These are raised so that one might see another dark
side of the women's movement. Are women offenders in the '70's being
made examples? If women want to work for change of their position in
society, they are shown they must do it within the limits of the law or
be prepared to suffer the consequences. Is the controversy over the
women's movement and crime overshadowing the fact that thousands of
women are being incarcerated in the most repressive institutions in
this society? (Nationally, women who are incarcerated rose from 6,329

in 1971 to 11,044 in 1977) (Correction's Magazine, 1978:14). Is an

 

effort of this controversy to discredit the women's movement and provide
an arena in the media for women to argue among themselves, thus deepen-
ing divisions and mistrust among women? Are women suspected of crimes
encouraged not to turn to the feminist community because it may jeopar-
dize their defense?

The dark side of the women's movement is not that women are

52

committing crimes. Women have been committing crimes for centuries.

Most laws are made to protect property, which women possess less often
than men. The dark side is that while some women rise with success with-
in the system other women, many women, are falling victims to the same

system.

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