Gendered Patterns of Offending

About the lecture

In this lecture, we think about the differences between the kinds of crimes committed by men and women, focusing in particular on: (i) the categorisation of society into 'men' and 'women' generally; (ii) the difference between crimes that take place, crimes that are reported to the police, and crimes that are recorded by the police; (iii) the difficulty of comparing crime statistics between different time periods and/or different countries; (iv) the fact that most crime is committed by men; (v) the different 'patterns of criminality' between men and women, including the ages at which men and women commit crimes, and the reason they commit crimes; (v) the distinction between (less serious) summary crimes, which are prosecuted in a magistrates court, and (more serious) indictable crimes, which are prosecuted in a crown court; (vi) the fact that the crimes committed by women are generally less serious than those committed by men, and (vii) the kinds of crimes most commonly committed by women and their association with domestic and child-rearing responsibilities.

About the lecturer

Dr Karen Evans is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology at the University of Liverpool. Her work has focused, although not exclusively, on communities in excluded neighbourhoods and their responses to marginalisation and deprivation. From the early 1990s this focus on the urban experience took Karen into research which was more criminological in nature as the fear of crime and victimisation increased in many neighbourhoods.