Assess the Value of the Chivalry Thesis in Understanding Gender Differences in Crime

Assess the value of the ‘chivalry thesis’ in understanding gender differences in crime (21 marks)

The chivalry thesis argues that the criminal justice system is more lenient towards women because the police and other control agencies ‘are socialised to be protective towards women’. This can lead to gender differences in crime as the male- dominated control agencies base their actions on a stereotype of females as incapable of serious criminality. For example women are less likely to be convicted for property crime compared to violent and sexual crimes committed by men mostly.

The chivalry thesis is supported by John Graham and Ben Bowling’s research where they conducted a study on 14-25 years old. The findings showed that males were 2.33 times more likely to admit to having committed an offence in the previous twelve months. Furthermore males were more likely to offend but the difference was smaller than that recorded in the official statistics.

The official statistics showed that four out of five males are convicted offenders in England and Wales. The official statistics show large amount of evidence that there is gender differences in crime however official statistics must be treated with caution because they become out of date quickly. Furthermore it shows an invalid picture on crime.

However Buckle and Farrington’s study questions the theory of chivalry thesis because their study suggests that women shoplifters are more likely to be prosecuted than their male counterparts. Although this was a small scale study so it cannot be generalised to the rest of England. Furthermore another study found out that women were not sentenced more leniently when committing offences such as theft and other comparable offences.

Feminist’s theory shows that the chivalry thesis does not contribute to the understanding of gender differences. Rather than being biased in favour of women, the criminal justice is biased against them. In the patriarchy court system, there...