Page 30 - June July 2017

Female Criminality in India
A plethora of writings on sociological viewpoint emerged during the last few decades including the following:

1. Equality theory

2. Economic theory

3. Opportunity theory
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4. Social disorganization theory A
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5. Role theory
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Predominant theories such as Thomas (1907) and later, Pollack (1961), believed that criminality was socially T
induced rather than biologically inherited. Pollack (1961) believed, it is the learned behavior from a very young A
age that leads girls into a masked character of female criminality, that is, how it was and still is concealed
through under-reporting and low detection rates of female offenders. He further states, in our male-dominated L
culture, women have always been considered strange, secretive and sometimes dangerous. A greater leniency
towards women by police and the justice system needs to be addressed especially if a true equality of genders is P
to be achieved in such a complicated world.
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These contemporary theorists reject earlier theories based on psychological and physiological viewpoints. N
Criminal behavior, as Sutherland and Cressy insisted, is learned through interaction with other persons. The I
learning includes both techniques for committing the crime and a more subjective element- the specific direction
of motives, derives, rationalizations and attitudes. Role theorists like Heidensohn and Hoffman offer explana- S
tion of female criminality in terms of social differentiation of gender roles. Hoffman emphasized that different H
socialization given to girls expect them to be non- violent and do not allow them to learn how to fight and use M
weapons. It prevents the women to acquire necessary technical ability or strength for crime.
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‘Double burden’ of work and household responsibilities, official indifference to the needs of women, the in- N
creasing rate of family breakdown, the alcoholism’s of husbands, the psychological trauma of divorce and finan- T
cial difficulties in rearing up ‘left with children’- all contribute to incidents of female criminality.

Unfortunately, these role theorists have desperately failed to propound any concrete idea about the etiology of
crime.

Psychological Viewpoint

Freudian hypotheses hold that women who are not passive and content with their traditional roles as mothers
and wives are maladjusted. Women who accept traditional roles as mothers and wives are “adjusted ones” and
are different from the maladjusted women, who refuse or fail to internalize the values associated with the role in
the society. He also said that women who do not internalize the traditional roles and values of the society, attend
institutions for higher learning, take up professions outside the four walls of their homes, join feminist move-
ments or commit crimes. He maintained that all females experience some degree of jealousy of males but ‘nor-
mal’ women manage to accept and internalize societal definitions of femininity, centered around single-minded
interest in motherhood. The The limitations of an attempt to explain crime strictly in psychological terms are
partly conceptual which fail to appreciate the significance of social factors in generating the deviant behavior.

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