Liberation/Emancipation, Economic Marginalization, or Less Chivalry

The Relevance of Three Theoretical Arguments to Female Crime Patterns in England and Wales, 1951–1980

STEVEN BOX 1 CHRIS HALE 1
1 University of Kent at Canterburg
Steven Box is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Kent at Canterbury. England. He specializes in teaching criminology and the sociology of deviance. His current research program (with C. Hale) is centered around an empirically based critique of the present British Government's "Law and Order" campaign. His recent publications include Power, Crime and Mystification, and Deviance, Reality and Society.

Chris Hale is a Lecturer in Quantitative Social Science and Management Science. He has published papers in econometric theory in various journals, including the Journal of the American Statistical Association and the International Economic Review. His current research interests include misspecification in econometric models and improved estimation techniques.

ABSTRACT
The alleged criminogenic nature of female liberation/emancipation has been tested recently by numerous North American researchers. Not only did the results lead them to different conclusions, but they did not test simultaneously for the effects on female conviction rates of increasing economic marginalization or less chivalrous treatment by the public, police, or courts toward female suspects. Data relating to England and Wales for 1951-1980 are used to test these competing explanations for changes in female criminality. The results give little support to the emancipation/liberation causes female crime hypothesis, but do provide limited support for the marginalization thesis. However, changes in social labelling appear to have a significant impact on female conviction rates, suggesting that previous researches omitting this possibility were seriously deficient. The authors suggest further research on actual women's lives and behavioral responses as a means of testing the effects of liberation/emancipation and marginalization on female criminal behavior.


DIGITAL OBJECT IDENTIFIER (DOI)
10.1111/j.1745-9125.1984.tb00312.x