Feminist Criminology

Feminist criminology grew out of the Women’s Movement of the 1970s in response to the neglect of women by, and the male dominance of, mainstream criminology. Examining feminist theoretical perspectives and empirical research in criminology, this key book investigates their impact on the discipline, the academy, and the criminal justice system.

Women, Crime and Justice in Context presents contemporary feminist approaches to key issues in criminal justice. It draws together key researchers from Australia and New Zealand to offer a context-specific textbook that covers all of the major debates in the discipline in an accessible way. This book examines both the foundational texts and cutting-edge contributions to the topic and acknowledges the unique challenges and debates in the local Australian and New Zealand context. Written as an entry-level text, it introduces undergraduate students to key theories and debates on the topics of offending, victimization and the criminal justice system. It explores key topics in feminist criminology with chapters exploring sex work, prison abolitionism, community punishment, media representations of crime and victims, and the impacts of digital technology on gendered violence. Centring on an intersectional approach, the book includes chapters that focus on disability, queer criminology, indigenous perspectives, migration and service-user perspectives. The book concludes by exploring future directions in feminist approaches to crime and justice. This book will be essential reading for undergraduates studying feminist criminology, gender and crime, queer criminology, socio-legal studies, intersectionality, sociology and criminal justice.

This collection re-imagines the field of criminology with insights gleaned from feminist theory. Works included here illustrate that gender is a key organizing principle of social life. This means that men and women have gender, that patriarchy as well as gender must be theorized, and that other systems of oppression such as race and class must also be studied to fully understand the crime problem and the criminal justice system. Finally, the articles collected here exemplify the feminist concern for thinking consciously about how and why we do our research with the crucial goal of producing knowledge that will promote social justice.

Examines the links between criminological theory and criminal justice policy and practice.

Emerald Studies in Criminology, Feminism and Social Change offers a platform for innovative, engaged, and forward-looking feminist-informed work to explore the interconnections between social change and the capacity of criminology to grapple with the implications of such change.

This much-needed book is a concise and accessible account of thecontribution of feminist thinking to the study of crime. Tracingthe intellectual history of criminology from its scientificfoundations in the nineteenth century to its recent encounters withpostmodernism, Naffine discusses the ways in which the disciplinehas established its priorities and values, and shows how men becameand remain the central interest of the discipline. Criminologists,she argues, are still reluctant to engage with feminist scholarshipwhich questions their agenda. Naffine argues that for several decades feminists from a variety ofdisciplines have been studying crime, producing increasinglyrefined and sophisticated understandings of the phenomenon. Theirinterests have ranged widely, from the effects of masculinity andfemininity on the propensity to offend, to the ways in which classand race affect the gender dimension of crime. They have pursueddifficult questions about the nature of knowledge and the meaningsof human behaviour in men and women. Naffine analyses the treatment of women offenders by the criminaljustice system, and women as victims of crime - especially violentcrime - and argues for a different understanding of sexualrelations between men and women within the crime of rape. Finally,she examines how feminist detective fiction can enliven and enhancethe study of crime. Provocative and well-argued, this timely book will be welcomed bystudents and researchers in women's studies, gender studies,criminology, sociology and law.

This book takes a look at female offenders through a biosocial lens. The gender ratio problem (why always and everywhere males commit more criminal acts than females) has been called the single most important fact that criminology theories must be able to explain. Feminist criminology has attempted to do this for decades without success because it has relied on conceptual and theoretical tools from a single discipline -- sociology. A number of famous criminologists (e.g., Travis Hirschi) have concluded that an explanation of gender differences in crime from the sociological perspective may not be possible because it excludes biological sex, the powerful underlying base of gender. It is the contention of this book that unless feminist criminology comes to grips with the evolutionary and neurological bases of fundamental gender difference, the field will continue to flounder without compass. Other influential criminologists, such as Francis Cullen, have concluded that the biosocial paradigm is the paradigm of the 21st century. This book looks at feminist criminology in general and attempts to explain its main concerns from a biosocial perspective while showing that there is nothing illiberal about it and that biology can be a very powerful ally for criminology. The book ranges across disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, psychology, behavioral and molecular genetics, the neurosciences, and evolutionary biology to attempt to answer the gender ratio problem. Our efforts are guided by Niko Tinbergen's famous four questions about major behavior patterns: adaptive function, phylogenic history, development, and causation. It is time to apply this exciting and robust paradigm -- one that avers that any trait or behavior of any living thing is always the result of biological factors interacting with environmental factors -- to the most vexing issues of feminist criminology. Changes to the new edition include the integration of a larger body of empirical research and expansion of the topics (such as adding information on gender differences in brain regions) as well as an added chapter that focuses on the explanation of intimate partner violence and rape.

Designed for upper-level senior and graduate criminological theory courses, this text thoroughly examines the ideas and assumptions underlying each major theoretical perspective in criminology. It lays bare theorists' ideas about human nature, social structure, social order, concepts of law, crime and criminals, the logic of crime causation and the policies and criminal justice practices that follow from these premises. The book provides students with a clear critical, analytic overview of criminological theory that enable enformed evaluative comparisons among different theorists.