Essay Sample on Gender and Crime

Introduction

The construction of gender on crime is primarily dependent on the intersectional social factors such as race and language. The increase in feminist involvement in crime created a different view of criminality and in-depth understanding of women engagement in criminal activities compared to men. Often, the gender disparity involvement in crime has downplayed the attempts to understand their roles in participation in violent activities. However, when both male and female have like reasons for participating in criminal activities, the performing of the crime is different that is based on personal choices in relation to their setting. The goal of this essay is to discuss the gender reconstruction in the street, how it contributes to offending as well as the intersectional perspective of offending.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Gender Re-Constructed On the Streets Among Men and Women

Gender is perceived as the most essential factor in relation to the different levels of fear of crime, women show a high level of fear compared to men. Various perspectives including the feminist view were elaborated on the influence of differential social processes in the street and women supposed more fearful than men. When a woman is willing to join a street gang, they are mostly initiated by gaining entry. The initiation process in the street is gendered unless an individual is born in or the street gang it is part of family history. Most often, social and structural hardships drive both men and women into street life (Dirks, Heldman & Zack, 2015). Women who often spend considerable time on the streets because of the loosening of family ties, learn from others and family members accustomed to the street lifestyle on gang lifestyle. Females who engage frequently with male gangs are easily entrenched into the gang lifestyle because they admire and emulate their male counterparts for them to raise their status within the gang. Therefore, women might learn from the male and reject their female counterparts, particularly those representing strict femininity as well as act tough to gain attention from male members as part of the gang (Kolb & Palys, 2016).

Frustration, alienation, and anger that are associated with social class oppression and race are considered the primary causes of women participation in the crime. The foregrounding of gender is vital to the consider gender to joining gangs, however, the presence of structural and cultural disadvantages in relation to economic status and race are key when considering the involvement of women in street gang. The males in the inner city are majorly driven in the street by neighborhoods, addiction, and peer influence.

Gender (Re) Constructions a Role in Offending

The context where both men and women live in urban setup may drive them to negotiate their lives into crime. Violence is rampant among the community, therefore, both men and women under these circumstances may tend to view violence as an appropriate means of navigating through their situation. Living in an environment where violence is extensive may lead to incorporation of crime into an individual's experimental self. Both men and women are forced to come into terms with as well as respond appropriately to violence as it penetrates through the streets, hence it gains a sort of cultural legitimacy among individuals. Economic oppression and race are the primary factors for violence involved in the street while gender is far much a salient factor for involvement in crime (Miller, 1998).

Importance Of Understand Offending From an Intersectional Perspective

Intersectionality is essential in the study of crime and social science, which presents the argument that interconnected identities of individuals and the perception of the identities must be considered during analysis. Research on gender and race put forward that intersectionality is critical in the discussion related to propensities for criminal offending. It is based on the fact that it is challenging to decipher between race and gender effect since the actual effects are intersectional. Primarily, intersectionality asserts that not all individual's experiences affected by race and gender, these identities repeatedly relate and affect each other. Statistics show that African Americans experience considerable victimization and offending compared to their white counterparts.

The relationship between gender, race, and crime is often overlooked on how they affect behavior. Social inequalities often influence behavior, therefore, gender and race variables should not be used as descriptive traits. Identifying categorical differences increases the potential of building a partnership among movement by recognizing differences while encouraging commonality. Therefore, it results in the acknowledgment of the relation of different structures and how they related. Understanding offending in an intersectional perspective shows a specific issue between separate groups, views of both victimhood and privilege, hence developing an association between experiences of discrimination and underprivileged, thereby facilitating cross-movement building. Therefore, failure to include a person's social status and experiences might result in irrelevant results in discovering human behavior in crime.

Conclusion

Hopefully, race and gender will not be a factor to determine how individuals are treated and judgment of their behavior. Frustration, alienation, and anger that are associated with social class oppression and race are considered the primary causes of women participation in the crime. Moreover, most often, social and structural hardships drive both men and women into street life. Social strata are very different and can be perceived different with other groups in relation to their structural behavior and determiners.

References

Dirks, D., Heldman, C., & Zack, E. (2015). 'She's White and She's Hot, So She Can't Be Guilty': Female Criminality, Penal Spectatorship, and White Protectionism. Contemporary Justice Review, 18(2), 160-177. doi:10.1080/10282580.2015.1025626

Kolb A & Palys T (2016) Homegirls, hoodrats and hos: Coconstructing gang status through discourse and performance. International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy 5(4): 2944. DOI: 10.5204/ijcjsd.v5i4.334.

Miller, J. (1998). Up It Up: Gender And The Accomplishment Of Street Robbery*. Criminology, 36(1), 37-66. doi:10.1111/j.1745-9125.1998.tb01239.x