The feminist school of criminology is a school of
criminology
Criminology (from Latin , "accusation", and Ancient Greek , ''-logia'', from λόγος ''logos'' meaning: "word, reason") is the study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is an interdisciplinary field in both the behavioural and so ...
developed in the late 1960s and into the 1970s as a reaction to the general disregard and discrimination of women in the traditional study of crime. It is the view of the feminist school of criminology that a majority of criminological theories were developed through studies on male subjects and focused on male criminality, and that criminologists often would "add women and stir" rather than develop separate theories on female criminality.
Feminist criminology focuses on women offenders, women victims, and women in the criminal justice system in order to understand the causes, trends, and results of female criminality. Key issues within the feminist school of criminology include the role of sex and sexism in sentencing and imprisonment, the role of victimization in women's lives, and the increase in the number of incarcerated women despite declining crime rates.
History
Criminology
Criminology (from Latin , "accusation", and Ancient Greek , ''-logia'', from λόγος ''logos'' meaning: "word, reason") is the study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is an interdisciplinary field in both the behavioural and so ...
is the scientific study of the causes, correction, and prevention of
crime
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definit ...
and
those who commit it. Though this field of study had its origins in the late 19th century, it was not until the late 1960s and 1970s that the feminist school of criminology emerged. A response to the then-current mainstream criminology's focus on male offenders and victims, feminist criminologists sought to bring an understanding of women offenders, women victims, and women working in the
criminal justice system
Criminal justice is the delivery of justice to those who have been accused of committing crimes. The criminal justice system is a series of government agencies and institutions. Goals include the rehabilitation of offenders, preventing other ...
.
Early theories on female deviancy
The earliest theories about women's criminality focused mainly on psychological and physiological traits, rather than social or economic ones. These theories, most advanced by male scholars and criminologists, have been heavily criticized for drawing on assumptions on "the nature of women", and many have since been discredited. Italian criminologist
Cesare Lombroso
Cesare Lombroso (, also ; ; born Ezechia Marco Lombroso; 6 November 1835 – 19 October 1909) was an Italian criminologist, phrenologist, physician, and founder of the Italian School of Positivist Criminology. Lombroso rejected the establis ...
applied
phrenology
Phrenology () is a pseudoscience which involves the measurement of bumps on the skull to predict mental traits.Wihe, J. V. (2002). "Science and Pseudoscience: A Primer in Critical Thinking." In ''Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience'', pp. 195–203. C ...
and
anthropological criminology
Anthropological criminology (sometimes referred to as criminal anthropology, literally a combination of the study of the human species and the study of criminals) is a field of offender profiling, based on perceived links between the nature of a ...
to his theorizing on female crime, separating the "normal woman" from the "criminal woman", the latter of whom was seen as less feminine and therefore more likely to be criminal. American sociologist
W.I. Thomas
William Isaac Thomas (August 13, 1863 – December 5, 1947) was an American sociologist, understood today as a key figure behind the theory of symbolic interactionism.
Collaborating with Polish sociologist Florian Znaniecki, Thomas developed and ...
advanced the idea that delinquent women engage in sexual deviance (such as
prostitution
Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in Sex work, sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, n ...
) to manipulate men's sexual desires in order to get what they want. To
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...
, female criminals were experiencing what he called "
penis envy
Penis envy (german: Penisneid) is a stage theorized by Sigmund Freud regarding female psychosexual development, in which young girls experience anxiety upon realization that they do not have a penis. Freud considered this realization a defining m ...
", acting out aggressively and rebelliously in their longing for their penis and manhood.
General Strain Theory
Criminologist
Robert Agnew
Robert Agnew (June 4, 1899 – November 8, 1983) was an American movie actor who worked mostly in the silent film era, making 65 films in both the silent and sound eras. He was born in Dayton, Kentucky.
A review of ''The Heart of Broadway'' i ...
attempted to understand the difference between men's and women's crime rates through General Strain theory. He theorized that men and women experienced different types of strain (pressure or stress, be it physical, financial, emotional, etc.) and responded accordingly. While men seemed more prone to react with violent or property crimes, women were viewed to respond with more self-destructive criminality, such as drug abuse.
Early feminist criminological theory
French-Canadian criminologist
Marie-Andrée Bertrand
Marie-Andrée Bertrand (June 12, 1925March 6, 2011) was a French-Canadian criminologist, a feminist and anti-prohibitionist.
Biography
Bertrand was born in Montreal and started her career as a social worker for female offenders, mainly prostit ...
and British sociologist
Frances Mary Heidensohn are among those acknowledged by most as pioneers in the school of feminist criminology. Heidensohn's article "''The Deviance of Women: A Critique and An Enquiry''" (1968) is credited as the first critique of mainstream criminology's failure to include women in their studies, stating that "the deviance of women is one of the areas of human behavior most notably ignored in sociological literature" and called for more research to be done on female deviance.
Early works of feminist criminological theory included
Freda Adler's ''Sisters in Crime: The Rise of the New Female Criminal'' (1975), which linked female criminality to the ongoing feminist liberation movement, theorizing that with more opportunities outside of the home, women were also given more opportunities to participate in deviant behaviors. This theory is sometimes known as the "Emancipation Theory". Rita J. Simon's book "''Women and Crime''", also published in 1975, echoed this theory. While both influential works in the field, Adler and Simon's theoretical linkage has been criticized by many feminists, including
Carol Smart
Carol Christine Smart (born 20 December 1948) is a feminist sociologist and academic at the University of Manchester. She has also conducted research about divorce and children of divorced couples.
Smart is an important figure within the femi ...
and
Meda Chesney-Lind
Meda Chesney-Lind is a US feminist, criminologist, and an advocate for girls and women who come in contact with the criminal justice system in Hawaii.
Overview
Chesney-Lind works to find alternatives to women's incarceration and is an advocate ...
for bringing about a "moral panic" and fear regarding women's liberation by, in Chesney-Lind's words, "threatening those who aspire for equality with the images of the witch, the bitch, and the whore."
Nevertheless, Adler and Simon's concept of the "new female criminal" inspired further research by feminist and non-feminist researchers alike. Most tests by non-feminist criminologist discredited the theory, while others found economic marginalization to be a stronger link to female crime. These results, however, came years after
Marxist-feminist Dorie Klein called attention to the lack of economic and social factors considered in feminist criminological research of the time.
Standpoint epistemology
In order to subvert the gender-blind criminological theory of the time, feminists in the late 1970's and early 1980's utilized the
standpoint theory
Standpoint theory, or standpoint epistemology, is a theory for analyzing inter-subjective discourses. Standpoint theory proposes that authority is rooted in individuals' personal knowledge and perspectives and the power that such authority exe ...
, which asserts that one's perspectives are formed based on their experiences. Research of this nature sought to understand female criminality by examining the lives and histories of women caught up in the criminal justice system. Common themes emerged in many of these women's narratives, including poverty, addiction, homelessness, and sexual abuse. This overarching presence of abuse led to countless studies on the link between victimization and criminalization and the ultimate theory that women's deviant behaviors could be understood as a way of coping with this abuse.
Standpoint epistemologies have been criticized for overgeneralizing women, accepting the above results as true for all women. Other feminist works take issue with the hyperfocus on the role of abuse in women's lives, arguing that these theories put women responsible for how they react to abuse, as well as justify imprisoning women who may have a greater need for treatment to deal with abuse. Activist and scholar
Julia Chinyere Oparah adds that standpoint theory "sidesteps the question of why the state responds to abused women with punishment". Regardless of the criticisms, standpoint theory-rooted research is credited as an instrumental tool in shifting feminist criminology away from the mainstream criminology.
Feminist theories on crime
Carceral feminism
A carceral feminist is a feminist that relies on the criminal justice system to address social problems and gender inequalities, such as violence against women and sentencing for sexual offenders. Carceral feminists, mainly consisting of radical, liberal, and/or white feminists, believe that a significant impact can be made on violence against women through increased and strengthened legislation, more police presence, and expansion of the penal system, especially in regards to sex offenders.
Abolitionist feminism
Considered an antithesis to carceral feminism, abolitionist feminism seeks to separate deviant behavior from the established criminal justice system, a system that they believe does little to address the roots of crime in society. Abolitionism is described as challenging "conventional definitions of crime and the law, while defying official views of the meanings and effects of punishment". Abolitionists assert that "crime" as it is understood, only exists within the laws that define it, and those laws are created to imprison and isolate members of the "unproductive" population.
Penal abolitionists look to the elimination of prisons to solve this problem, though other abolitionists warn that when crime is only viewed as a product of prisons or institutions, "they stunt abolitionist understandings in manners akin to pushing against a 500 year old tree from its trunk and expecting it to topple over without any account for the roots that hold it firmly in the ground."
Abolitionist feminist
Viviane Saleh-Hanna furthers this theory by theorizing that crime exists within the intersection of
racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
,
imperialism
Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic and ...
, and
sexism
Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers primari ...
– which Saleh-Hanna refers to as the R.I.P. (Racist-Imperialist-
Patriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical anthropological term for families or clans controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males a ...
). Saleh-Hanna developed this theory with the implementation of her Black Feminist
Hauntology
Hauntology (a portmanteau of ''haunting'' and ''ontology'') is a range of ideas referring to the return or persistence of elements from the social or cultural past, as in the manner of a ghost. The term is a neologism first introduced by French ...
. Hauntology refers to the return or persistence of elements from the past, as in the manner of a
ghost
A ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to rea ...
, and in this case refers to the haunting of society by policies meant to dehumanize, ostracize, and punish populations of people, specifically the Black community. Systems that sought to criminalize and punish Black bodies, such as
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
,
Jim Crow
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...
laws, and
mass incarceration
Incarceration in the United States is a primary form of punishment and rehabilitation for the commission of felony and other offenses. The United States has the largest prison population in the world, and the highest per-capita incarceratio ...
are seen in this theory as an ever-returning "ghost" of the Racist-Imperialist-Patriarchy.
Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Feminist School Of Criminology
Criminology
Feminism and history
Feminism and education