Feminist and Critical Criminology and Political Crime

• Up to this point we have talked extensively about crime and constructions of criminality.  You may or may not have picked up on it, but these discussions have been heavily male-dominated, meaning that they emphasize men’s involvement in crime and in shaping what is and is not considered criminal.  This is because, until recently, criminology as a discipline has been monopolized by males.  This did not begin to change in a meaningful way until the 1960s and 1970s, at which time the feminist and gender-based theories took on a personality of their own.  Entirely new branches of criminological thinking emerged from women’s thinking about offending, victimization, and the criminal justice system.  Undoubtedly, this has changed the way we all think about crime and crime causation externally.  We now find ourselves, as criminologists, asking why it is that males commit so much crime and why females do not.  In this week’s class discussion, I would like you to address this very topic with your peers.  Below I provide a list of questions that I would like you to use to facilitator a discussion about female involvement in crime and “gendered” constructions of criminality, with a specific focus on political crimes.  Your write up should include a response to each of these questions; however, you need not feel limited by these questions.  I encourage each of you to explore this topic in as much detail as you like.  

  Guiding questions:

  •  Why and how do patterns of offending differ by age?
  • How does the gender of people who break the law influence their treatment by police, prosecutors, courts, and corrections?
  • Is criminology and criminal justice gender-informed?
  • What is the link between female criminality and political crime?
  • What are some examples of political crimes perpetrated by females and what were their motivations?  Did the political crime or crimes you selected result in some form of equality for women?
  • Do you feel that feminist criminology emerged alongside women’s fight for equality?

• LECTURE VIDEOS
• READINGS: Beirne, P. & Messerschmidt, J. S. (2015). Criminology: A Sociological Approach (6^th Ed.).  New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
  • Chapter 8: Feminist and Critical Criminology
  • Chapter 13: Political Crime
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfdT2R53JhM
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQdn2jComKc
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Qm2A5lh_Lc&feature=emb_logo