Sociology - Sex differences

With reference to gender, discuss the possible relationship between offending, victimisation and treatment within the criminal justice system

“Sex differences in criminality are so sustained and so marked as to be, perhaps, the most significant feature of recorded crime” (Heidensohn, 1996, in Newburn, 2007, p.806). What Heidensohn (1996) means when saying this is that: when studying criminality, sex differences are the most compelling feature of recorded crime. This quote sums up why I chose to do my essay on the subject of gender and criminality.
The purpose of this essay is to discuss and raise questions about the links of gender in the context of offending, victimisation and treatment within the criminal justice system. When talking about gender, I will use official statistics and even self-report (crime) surveys to explain why these different levels of phenomena in terms of female & male offending and female & male victimisation occur. Additionally, I will use sources from different theories/theorists to back up my own interpretations of what the question is asking. The main sources that I shall use throughout the essay will be Understanding crime data: Haunted by the dark figure by Coleman and Moynihan and Criminology by Newburn. These sources will provide support for what my essay will set out to explain, with links to certain theories of different types of gendered criminality, e.g. the chivalry thesis and double deviance.
When studying criminality within gender, it is important to make sure the difference between sex and gender is established. By doing this, we are able to understand the contrasting types of behaviour that men and women adhere to, not because they are born into that specific type of behaviour through their biological sex, but rather the way society constructs the way we should behave depending on our sex, otherwise known as gender. This means, that we act in the way society wants us to act, which originally stems from our...