The Criminal Justice System

The differences between the male and female crime rates were staggering. According to the statistics in the book, crimes are mostly committed by males. The book even suggests that "certain crimes perpetrated by women go unreported." Otto Pollak's suggestion is that women are committing crimes in the home. Although this claim was made in the 1950s, it makes one wonder how much this still stands true today. While many women today have a full time job, there is still a stereotype of women being more domestic than men. It could be possible that the crimes women commit are inside their home, therefore it could be more difficult for police to catch women committing the crime. Or society's perception that women are not often violent could be inhibiting police from being less likely to arrest a women committing a crime. This stereotype could also explain why women mostly commit non-violent crimes, such as stealing. It would be interesting to conduct an experiment to see if Pollak's chivalry theory was being practiced by policemen. Since women get sent to prison less than men, it would be interesting if a statistic was compiled of their crimes and how many men who committed those same crimes were in prison. Statistics such as these could help determine if the chivalry theory was being practiced in society.