Okay, this has been bugging me for years. From time to time I browse the police blotter and court reports in the local paper. Reading the lists of convictions, I have noticed that there are a couple specific crimes where the person convicted is, the vast majority of the time, a woman. What’s up with that? Here are the crimes, and my ideas:
Forgery: This seems to typically involve writing checks on somebody else’s account. I would guess that about 90 percent of these forgery convictions I see are of women. Why so many more women than men?
My theory: forgery is the “female” counterpart to burglary. A man who wants to steal an item is more likely to simply go steal the item directly. A woman is more likely to swipe somebody else’s checkbook and try to buy things with it.
Possession of methamphetamine: I’d say that a good 80 percent of these convictions are of women.
My theory: the men who are caught with meth are more likely to be involved in something much more serious, such as manufacture and distribution. When arrested and charged, they are possibly getting the “possession” charge dropped in a plea agreement, say, in exchange for pleading guilty to the more serious charges. Women, on the other hand, are probably getting caught carrying the drug in their purses when they get arrested for some other minor offense - say, shoplifting. The drug possession is the more serious charge, and so they plead guilty to that in exchange for dropping the lesser charge.
Any better ideas?