GENDER,SOCIAL NETWORKS,AND RESIDENTIAL BURGLARY*

Criminological researchers have devoted substantial attention to the nature and dynamics of residential burglary, but the role played by gender in shaping this offense remains largely unexplored. Feminist ethnographers have documented the fact that streetlife is highly gendered, and that this typically serves to marginalize women's participation in criminal networks and activities. Therefore, it appears likely that residential burglary—a prototypically social offense that requires good network connections—will be strongly influenced by gender dynamics. In this study, we analyze in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews with 18 female and 36 male active residential burglars to examine the ways in which gender structures access to, participation in, and potential desistance from, residential burglary. In doing so, we aim to provide an insider's view of how gender stereotypes are expressed, reinforced, and exploited within streetlife social networks, and how these networks shape the lived experience of men and women engaged in residential burglary.     

Thought suppression,memory, and interrogative suggestibility

Abstract

Ethnomethodologists in the field of offender-based research have recently criticised the earlier use of prison-based samples in research on residential burglary. They claim that interviewing burglars in their natural environment has produced findings of greater validity and reliability. By describing further analysis of data from earlier experimental research on burglars in prison, and drawing on findings from other work on residential burglary, this article sets out to highlight the striking similarity between findings from interview, experimental and ethnographic studies in this area. Far from discounting earlier experimental and interview studies, the recent ethnographic works have served to build on and complement earlier work. The value of using a variety of methods in offender-based research is then discussed.     

Examination of systematic variations in burglars' domain-specific perceptual and procedural skills

Abstract

This research examines systematic variations in residential burglars' domain-specific perceptual and procedural skills. Utilising a formula incorporating frequency of offending, generation of offending-related income, burglary charges, and estimated duration of burglary career, 53 experts and 53 novices were objectively identified from a sample of 209 interviews conducted with incarcerated burglars. The perceptual and procedural burglary skills of these two groups were compared and the results demonstrated important differences indicative of superior domain-specific performance for objectively classified experts. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed, along with suggestions for application of this knowledge to crime prevention initiatives.     

Studying deterrence with active residential burglars

Research designed to test deterrence/rational choice theory has contributed much to the knowledge of sanction threats, and the extent to which they are used in individuals' decision-making processes. The accumulation of knowledge about such perceptions among active and incarcerated offenders has surfaced only in recent years. We identified and interviewed active residential burglars to examine how they take into consideration the perceptions of risks and rewards before committing a burglary. Employing a series of estimation techniques which have not yet been used to study this research question, we find that offenders are influenced by the perceptions of both risk and rewards, though the latter are a stronger predictor of the decision to engage in a residential burglary. Theoretical implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

EFFECTS OF ATTRACTIVENESS, OPPORTUNITY AND ACCESSIBILITY TO BURGLARS ON RESIDENTIAL BURGLARY RATES OF URBAN NEIGHBORHOODS

This study assesses the effects of attractiveness, opportunity and accessibility to burglars on the residential burglary rates of urban neighborhoods, combining two complementary lines of investigation that have been following separate tracks in the literature. As a complement to standard measures of attractiveness and opportunity, we introduce and specify a spatial measure of the accessibility of neighborhoods to burglars. Using data on about 25, 000 attempted and completed residential burglaries committed in the period 1996–2001 in the city of The Hague, the Netherlands, we study the variation in burglary rates across its 89 residential neighborhoods. Our results suggest that all three factors, attractiveness, opportunity and accessibility to burglars, pull burglars to their target neighborhoods.     

Women,Work, and Crime: An International Test of the Emancipation Hypothesis

This study analyzes Interpol statistics on female crime for the 1963–1970 period for a sample of Western nations with the purpose of testing two popular explanations of female criminality. Six measures of female economic participation in society were correlated with female proportional involvement in overall crime rates, theft, fraud, murder, and robbery/burglary.

It was found that women's contribution to the overall arrest rate is neither directly proportional to their employment in the commercial work force, nor to the degree in which their jobs are comparable to those of males. The analysis of the crimes of theft and fraud provided support for the “opportunity” version of emancipation theory. Adler's “aggressive” variant of the emancipation hypothesis was only partly borne out by the data for murder and not supported for robbery and burglary.     

An investigation into the differentiating characteristics between car key burglars and regular burglars

Car key burglary has recently become the focus of empirical investigation as offenders, no longer able to steal vehicles without first obtaining their keys, resort to "burgling" target properties. Research surrounding the modus operandi of these offenses is beginning to emerge; however, little attention has been paid to investigating the characteristics of car key burglary offenders. Challenging the assumption that car key burglary offenses are perpetrated by regular burglars, this study aims to differentiate between offenders. Logistic regression analysis of 110 car key and 110 regular burglary offenders revealed that car key burglars are more likely to have previous vehicle theft convictions and are also more likely to be detected on information supplied to the police than regular burglars. Regular burglars are more likely to have previous shoplifting convictions. It was concluded that car key burglars are a distinct sample of offenders and the implications of these findings are discussed.     

Age,Role Changes and Gender Power in Family Relationships

Abstract

This article explores the effect of a prison sentence on an inmate's female partner, with particular reference to the impact on ‘older’ women. Drawing on the findings of an empirical qualitative research study and the existing literature, this article considers the gender role changes prompted by imprisonment, and the strategies utilized by women in coping with consequent strain. The gendered nature of the impact of imprisonment is explored, and the article concludes by drawing on multidisciplinary feminist perspectives in criminology and family studies to assess the centrality of institutionalized ‘traditional’ expectations of appropriate women's behavior to women's experiences of, and responses to, male imprisonment.     

Perceived Discrimination Among Women in Law Enforcement

ABSTRACT

This work explores the depth and dimensions of gender-based discrimination as perceived by female police officers. Using snowball sampling, 27 currently employed female law-enforcement officers in a large metropolitan area of the Southwest were interviewed. Qualitative data analysis techniques were used to analyze the findings and to extract the themes that emerged from the women's perceptions of discrimination coming from their male peers, from male supervisors or administrators, and from citizens of both sexes. Most of thepolicewomen interviewed reported experiencing discrimination from one or all of these sources. However, almost without exception, they saw their situation today as improved over that of the past policewomen. No consistent differences in perceptions emerged related toage, race-ethnicity, rank, employer, or length of service.     

Women's Emancipation and the Ownership of Firearms

ABSTRACT

Criminologists argue that the involvement of women in traditionally male forms of criminality has increased as a result of their increased economic and social liberation from patriarchal control. Although this argument remains controversial, it has been suggested that emancipated attitudes and behaviors can also be linked to women's gun ownership. Using data from the General Social Survey, we test an emancipation model of women's firearm ownership. Our analysis reveals that emancipation is related to the ownership of such weapons among married but not among unmarried women. Further analysis suggests that this finding reflects the power of culture to shape the action strategies through which attitudes are put into action.     

Women's Substantive Representation: Defending Feminist Interests or Women's Electoral Preferences?

To what extent does the inclusion of marginalised groups in policymaking institutions influence policy outcomes? This article examines whether and under which conditions female legislators are more likely to represent women's interests compared with male legislators. Building on the literature on women's substantive representation, it is argued that the advocacy of women's interests by female representatives depends on a number of factors, namely party affiliation, contact with women's organisations, electoral district, and seniority. This argument is evaluated using vote-level fixed-effect models based on a unique data set from a direct democratic context that combines representatives' voting behaviour, women's voting preferences, and recommendations from feminist groups. The findings show that female legislators defend feminist interests more than their male colleagues but that they only marginally respond to women's electoral preferences. Moreover, gender has its most visible effect within the populist party.     

Guardianship and residential burglary

Guardianship is a key element in the routine activities approach to understanding crime. This paper examines the effects of guardianship on residential burglary. Several features distinguish these analyses from prior work: 1) both primary and proxy guardianship are included: 2) a more direct indicator of primary guardianship is used; and 3) the effects of guardianship on both the initial risk of burglary and the probability that the crime will be completed are examined. The findings suggest that the effects of guardianship on residential burglary may have been underestimated in prior research. The analyses also show that a complete understanding of the effects of guardianship—especially proxy guardianship—on the entire burglary process will require simultaneous consideration of victimization and offending perspectives.     

PERCEPTUAL DETERRENCE AMONG ACTIVE RESIDENTIAL BURGLARS: A RESEARCH NOTE*

The research reported here is based on a comparison of active residential burglars and a matched control group regarding their willingness to commit a burglary at varying levels of certainty of arrest, severity of penalty, and anticipated reward. Initial analyses revealed that few controls were willing to offend regardless of risk, penalty, or reward and that offenders were not influenced by penalty on its own. Consequently, responses of the offenders only were further analyzed in relation to the impact of risk, penalty, and reward. The results of a logit analysis indicated that both risk of being caught and prospect of increased gain had a significant influence on the offenders' decision making.     

Juvenile arrest rates for burglary: A routine activities approach

Juveniles comprise a substantial portion of the offenders arrested for burglary in the United States each year. Using a Hierarchical Multivariate Linear Model, the current research examines juvenile burglars, by gender, utilizing a routine activities approach. This analysis was performed using data on the thirty five largest cities in Texas, between 1990 and 2004. Increased incidents of juvenile arrests for burglary, in both genders, occurred where there were high levels of poverty and low levels of female headed households. Juvenile males appeared to be arrested more for burglary in areas where there were high levels of unemployment and non-white individuals, while juvenile females were arrested for burglary in places where there were higher numbers of males between the ages of 19 and 24 years. Results suggest that the current measures of routine activities theory better explains variation in juvenile male arrests for burglary.     

Pattwena of harm: An analysis of gender and defamation

This article explores whether the law of defamation is gender‐specific. Through a quantitative and historical analysis of libel and slander cases, the study indicates that when women brought actions against those who assaulted their reputations their likelihood of being awarded judicial remedy was unalterably linked to their sexual identity. The study examined 278 appellate cases brought by both male and female plaintiffs during two decades in United States history when emergent women's rights movements were pronounced, the late 19th century and the mid‐20th century.     

The psychological impact of burglary

Abstract

The GHQ-12 and POMS-BI questionnaires were administered to 20 victims of residential burglary and 20 matched control participants at two points in time. When assessed between one and two weeks after the crime, victims were more anxious, hostile, depressed, tired and confused, and experienced more psychological distress, in comparison with controls. When assessed for a second time one month later there was a general improvement in victims' psychological well-being but their scores still differed significantly from those of controls on almost all sub-seales of the questionnaires. The data suggest that the psychological impact of burglary is considerable and may last for an extended period of time.     

An Application of Convergence Theory to Women's Drinking and Driving

Abstract

Convergence theory hypothesizes that as the social roles of the sexes equalize, there will be less differentiation in the social behavior of men and women. Fatal Accident Reporting Systems (FARS) data from 1982 through 1991 were utilized to investigate the convergence hypothesis regarding drinking and driving as a possible explanation for women's increased single vehicle crash deaths. Only driver fatalities were studied: N = 125,504 (17.6% female) with a subset, N = 42,129 (15.3% female) selected by quality of blood alcohol concentration (BAC) reporting for examining alcohol use. Drinking and driving for both sexes has decreased over the ten-year period. Convergence in drinking and driving behavior is not a viable explanation of women's increased traffic deaths. Women now are as likely as men to have a driver's license and women have also increased their annual mileage. Increased exposure to traffic death may provide a better explanation of women's increasing fatalities.     

Service v. Security Focus in Training Assessments

ABSTRACT

As jails have moved to professionalize their staffs the role of the correctional officer has become broader in scope and now encompasses both service and security functions. However, some research suggests that female correctional staff may have more of a “service” orientation than males. In our analysis of one dataset from exclusively women's jail facilities we investigate correctional officer preferences for training (service v. security) to see if they differ by gender. We find that both male and female correctional officers generally rank service type training over security and that they differ little in their overall assessment of initial training provided and usefulness of in-service training. We also find that minority officers may be more likely to value service training than their nonminority counterparts.     

Feminized justice: The impact of women decision makers in the lower courts in Australia

We examine the impact of an Australian state government's decision to appoint a considerable number of women to its previously all-male Magistrates' Courts. Interviews with a sample of 30 male and female magnistrates revealed ready acceptance of this major change, probably because of organizational peculiarities of the jurisdiction. The advent of women as judicial decision makers was perceived to have improved the work environment of the courts. Comparison of the ways in which male and female magistrates perceive aspects of their job (e.g., judicial role, adjudication, sentencing, and the conduct of informal proceedings) suggests that most of the apparent gender differences are more likely the product of age and background than evidence of justice “in a different voice.” Changes in court ideology suggest that the appointment of women may have been used to further more general political objectives. A critical question for feminist research might be: When and why do conservative institutions adopt strategies that apparently promote women's interests?     

Female Inmates' Perspectives on Sexual Abuse by Correctional Personnel

Abstract

Research into the sexual abuse of female inmates by correctional workers is scarce, despite documentation of its occurrence in prisons across the United States. This exploratory study examined dimensions of staff-inmate sexual contact in a correctional facility in Hawaii through two focus group interviews with imprisoned women. The women described three types of sexual abuse in prison: “trading,” “love,” and “in the line of duty.” Findings include the women's account of these forms of abuse and their perceptions of responsibility for staff-inmate sexual contact in correctional institutions. The women's beliefs about factors contributing to sexual abuse of female inmates, including job expectations of and power issues among adult correctional officers (ACO's), and the consequences of reporting abuse are also discussed. Given the vulnerability of female inmates and the power dynamics that typify the prison context, further research on this problem is warranted.