Law Commons^™

Gender And Crime: Offense Patterns And Criminal Court Sanctions, Ilene H. Nagel, John Hagan

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The relation between gender and criminality is strong, and is likely to remain so. Women have traditionally been much less likely than men to commit violent crimes, and that pattern persists today. Rates of female involvement in some forms of property crime-notably petty theft and fraud-appear to be increasing. However, while the relative increase in women's property crime involvement is significant, female participation even in these crimes remains far less than that of men.

The relation of gender to case processing decisions in the criminal justice system varies from stage to stage. Although the pertinent literature is plagued by methodological …