Theory
The theory of women’s liberations based on the paradigm of gender inequality was first developed in 1970 in the United States due to changes in gender difference in crime in the social set up. Freda Adler came up with the theory in 1975 explaining the increase in crime rate of female to men. Alder revealed that as women are fighting for equal opportunities between them and men they tend to indulge in crimes such as robbery, murder and white collar crimes resulting into them venturing into a mans’ world. Adler‘s concentrated his theory on real problems within the criminal justice system and this was seen as the women’s movement. Giordano and Cerkovich conducted a study in 1979 to try and answer the pending questions in Adler’s theory; they took a sample of women between the ages of 17-29 and the result was that women should enter into the work force as there role was not just that of a house wife as the tradition stated. James and Thornton did a study using women in prison as the sample group and the findings were that those involved in crime are women who are impoverished and who did not go to school.
- Paradigm: Changes in gender differences have been seen as the major cause of crime amongst women. In this theory females are less prone to commit criminal offences due to them having different goals as compared to their male counterparts since they are fairly easily achievable, for instance in a case where a man aims for material wealth and a woman for a domestic requirement, the latter achieves it with ease.. In the traditional society domestic culture was observed as a definitive goal instead of material wealth. The subjective-deconstructive perception lengthened feminist epistemologies and methodologies by analyzing the function of women in both historical and social processes. According to this research, women have been viewed to play a part in their own repression and oppression as well as in suppression of other females and males. Traditionally, it is believed that men were involved in crimes more than women but the explanations for this sex ratio was debatably obsolete and unsupported prior to feminist contribution beginning. Consequently, a feminist contribution to criminology was undoubtedly going to progress in some way, contributions therefore started a level headed dispute on the role of women in crime. If traditional theories focused on sexual criminal behavior as the cause for women to commit crime, then the feministic view point has surely contributed by desirable quality of its extinction, as it has slowly gnarled this myth. Although traditional theories gives explanations to people ,giving reasons why men indulge in criminal issues, there could not be a convincing explanation of women and why they commit crimes because the theories were based on males and cannot be used on women as it would not give a fair representation at the end. It is indispensable to continue to scrutinize the causes of crime and the patterns produced by gender in crime, and it is important to have a feminist perception on this in order to address questions relating to gender and crime. A lot of the research and analysis on the subject have focused on males in crime while leaving out the females, therefore in order to have a well balanced, realistic and accurate data; researchers should ensure that they take into account the whole population while analyzing criminology. Although some conventional hypothesis can give explanations why females engage in fewer crimes, a feminist input cannot be overlooked since it is very essential for the additional growth of criminology.
- Concept: It is believed that the male gender engages in more criminal activity than the female gender and the reasons why males commit crimes cannot be related to why females commit crimes because they are totally different. Therefore, the idea of leaving the women to entirely take the role of men like taking care of the family and gender inequality are the main reasons why women have opted to involve in crime. However minority of them are exposed to crime as a result of gender ratio of fundamental mechanisms that are responsible for both inducing and protection of violence. This theory therefore explains the paradox brought about by women indulging in crime.
Assessment
- Logical consistency: The theory’s logical steadiness is clearly defined in accordance to crimes that are committed constantly by women which are caused by impoverishment and oppressed conditions. The theory has survived so many tests especially those dealing with issues related to cause of crime in women; however women criticize the theory on the ground that it does not help women fight for gender equality.
- Scope: The theory of women liberation from inequality can be applied extensively on a broad area covering the community/society as a whole even outside the world of criminology. What’s more is its ability to define crime by basing its causes on bad structures; it is able to be applied at a macro level and can be applied to various crimes committed
- Parsimony: Due to constant increase in crime amongst women this theory insists that we first try to understand the philosophical and the changes that took place since 1970.
- Testability: The starkness of criminal penalties is calculated by use of information collected from legal dealings and perceptions of individuals’ on the subjections of penalties. A person’s perception of punishment determines if they commit the crime in spite of what the objective information says. In conclusion it is not easy to weigh a person’s level of perception of a crime, and there are many crimes that go unreported and in which people are not trapped
- Usefulness: The theory would have demonstrated its usefulness if it aims at reducing crimes committed by women and also try’s to draw a balance or a line between gender equality hence assigning each his/her responsibility.
- Empirical validity: Outcome from the research done on women states that women do not act or think the way criminologists have always implied. Economic hardship has been blamed to be the cause of increase in crime by women agitated by labor force participation. Gender difference has also increased the crime rate in women and as women fight to reduce the gap of inequality whereby the results have left women in economic marginalized position where they have to work and deal with poverty as they relieved men from their cultural duty to support and take care of the women
- Personal recommendation: This theory should be widely developed because it is applied to a range of criminal acts among women and to advance and understand the causes of violent criminal behavior and how to control it.