1 describe the basis of feminist criminology
Chivalry had only positive effects on women who were essentially more deceitful than men, and were the instigators rather than the perpetrators of crime. Cesare Lombroso identified the female physiognomy thought most likely to determine criminal propensity.
Naffine probably represents the best example of this critique, but there are other critiques, such as the characterisation of females as "helpmates" or facilitators of crime in the Strain Theories of Albert K.
It has been argued that methodology has been gendered Oakley ;with quantitative methods traditionally being associated with words such as positivism, scientific, objectivity, statistics and masculinity, while qualitative methods have generally been associated with interpretivism, non-scientific, subjectivity and femininity.
Adler's 'sisters in crime' appears to work within the frameworks of traditional criminology rather than a feminist one. Further, those of the feminist school of criminology claim that men are the dominant group and the standard of normality and have maintained inequality through control of the definition of deviance and of the institutions of social control.
These associations have led some feminist researchers to criticize or even reject the quantitative approach, arguing that it is in direct conflict with the aims of feminist research, though other have argued that this rejection is merely because those feminist writers did not like the results of the quantitative analysis.
While he credited criminal women as being stronger than men, the consequence was that prison would hardly affect them at all. One in three female offenders in state prisons is incarcerated for a violent offense, but female violent offenders are twice as likely as men to have victimized someone they knew.
Additionally, the Weberian value-free approach to the study of criminology has failed to recognize that the experiences of the researchers themselves shape and formulate their own approaches to their research. An absence rather than availability of employment opportunities liberation thesis would seem a more plausible explanation for increases in female crime.