Crime statistics show that, generally speaking, men are more likely to commit crime than women, especially violent crime. Why is this the case?
Is it possible that many of these male criminals would not have committed their crimes had they been born female? If so, how can we, as a society, ‘blame’ them for their wrongdoings, when clearly it is simply a result of their biology?? If not, why would men ‘choose’ to commit violent crimes with a much higher frequency than women unless they are morally inferior???
It seems to me that the crime statistics necessarily conflict with either our concept of ‘free will’ or with the belief that both sexes are morally equal.
I think blame lies partly in society and partly in testosterone. Men are allowed…even encouraged…to defend their turf, their women, their stuff. They are considered weak if they let anyone get the upper hand. I have no cite for any of this. It is based on my observations.
Even if it is partly male nature, how is that different from a legal viewpoint than if it were human nature?
Men, who basically make the laws, have a good idea of what is preventable through laws.
If it rarely comes up in the case of women that doesn’t make it invalid at all.
If it rarely came up for people over 90 (which I’m sure applies to most crimes), then there would be no harm in applying it when it does come up- when a 90-year old steals something from his neighbor’s porch.
Less apt to do the crime, but equally less apt to do the time.
Men are clearly more prone to doing certain bad things but I do not know what you mean when you say that “we, as a society, blame them”. No, we just say, “if you do X, we will do Y to you”. That is not blame, it is consequences or your acts. The only place I see men being blamed for being bad is by feminazis and I have no regard for them anyway. But society as a whole does not blame men for being men AFAIK.
We could, however, blame men. The evidence would seem to support it. We could for example argue in favor of laws that put greater restrictions on the unsupervised movement of males, for example a curfew. (The fallout would be pretty awful of course but I’m not actually advocating it)
It does at any rate make more sense than laws which place greater restrictions on women.
Are you implying such laws exist, or are you just speaking hypothetically?
There are some laws that are pretty much focused on males: many sexual assualt laws assume the perpetrator is a male (usually a safe bet), and many divorce, child support and vistation rules heavily favor mothers.
What statistics are you talking about? Are we allowed to see them?
Do they actually say that men are more likely to commit crimes than women, or just that they are caught and punished more often? There are a lot of different ways to interpret statistics, and I’d actually like to see the disparity in “likelihood,” how accurate your summary of the studies are, and how they adjusted for the possibility that men and women get reported, arrested, and/or charged for crimes at different rates.
For thousands of years- men were the"breadwinners". Most crimes are economic in nature (thus a large crime drop during good economic times, etc)- and thus there is pressure for the man to “bring home the bacon” in any way he can. Some are unable to do so legally, some choose not to, and some have no morals- thus they turn to illegal ways of making money. This is changing- woman are also being convicted of many more of these types of crimes. But for this reason- men DO commit more crimes.
Then there are “crimes of passion”- for some reason, women can get out of these more often than men. For example- "the burning bed’ or “Goodbye Earl”- in both of these cases it is considered OK (note I know one is a fictional song, and the other is fictionalized, but…) for the woman to kill her wife-beating man. But “husband beating” is nealry as common as wife-beating- but no man would ever to able to convince a Jury “he had to”. :dubious: :rolleyes:
Finally, we have “nutcase crimes”. Men have the “Y” chromosome, thus a higher chance of oddities creeping in- thus more “nutcases”, thus more “nutcase crime”. And also- note recent cases of mother killing their children because the women went whacko- and there is a strong push in those cases to let the Mother be commited rather than face the gas chamber. Not so for males who commit the same crime.
Then- it also could be true that men are simply more violent & criminal than women. Stats bear this out, I’ll admit. And thus, there are occasional calls (see Ahunter3s post) to restrict or discriminate against males. But I will point out that those very same stats would also “prove” that Blacks are more violent & criminal than whites, and thus we should have “curfews on Blacks”. :rolleyes: Most liberals say that the reason more blacks are convicted is because of a racist system. Oddly, some of the same liberals are happy to attribrute to MALES what they would never attribute to Blacks. Kinda hypocritical, eh? :dubious:
Note I do think that racism does have a bit to do with Blacks being convicted more than white (well, at least in some cases for the higher penalties). But I think the largest reason is again economic- blacks tend to be poorer, and thus have more motive for crime (see my 1st paragraph).
It seems to me that when a woman does something selfish, unfair, and hurtful to other people, it’s usually an emotional or verbal attack. These things are harder to quantify in numbers and so are harder to prove in a trial setting.
It could be a good thing or bad thing for women, depending on how you look at it.
Surely a part of the answer has to involve looking at what behaviour we choose to criminalise? Criminal law is just one instrument of social control, and we appear to use that instrument more to control behaviour-patterns which are typically male, and less with behaviour-patterns that are typically female. But that is a choice that society is making.
May I offer the crazy opinion that we just don’t investigate, prosecute, or convict women on an equal footing? We give women the benefit of the doubt at every turn of the process, and lo and behold they come out ahead at the end. Especially if we’re talking about a rich, white, attractive woman.
Assuming these two statistics which are widely held to be true cross culturally, although with some interesting cross-cultural variation:
Men commit much more crime, particularly violent crimes then women
Men also have higher mortality rates than womem at virtually all ages, but particularly around 20ish and around 40-50ish.
These two facts (unproven because of my lazyness to give you citations) have been interpreted I believe accuratley by evolutionary psychologists and biologists to show fundamental differences in the effective strategy for each sex (post-doc Dan Kruger from Michigan University in particular has investigated the differences in male female mortality).
If a female wants to have a baby she is pretty much garanteed this ability. Furthermore she is limited to the number of children she can have.
Contrast this with males. Males can have many more children than females. Presumable if this is happening some guys are getting a lot of action, while others aint’ getting so much. So the man is by no means garanteed a women. (A monogamous society helps equalize the situation, but still their are many cuckolded men - 1/10 of all children as cited from a professor of mine).
So women have more reproductive certainty and men have more uncertainty.
What is the man to do? Well the man should try to develop techniques that will make so he can be the man getting a lot of action, or at least settle down with a wife he can trust not to cuckold him. This means men develop all sorts of competitive techniques two try to maximize their reproduction, while females don’t have to worry so much.
So back to the stats I started with. Men commit more violence because of desires to distinguish themselves from other men to increase their reproductive sucess.
This strategy results in a difference in male-female mortality ratios. Men will engage in more risky behaviors (i believe their immune systems are also weaker to facilitate this at a deeper biological level) that are more likely to get them killed. These behaviors peak at reproductive age ~20s and then around 20 years later. The 20 years later is said to be a lag time for the abuse the young lad puts upon his body to catch up with him.
I have only briefly and poorly covered a very interesting body of research. If you show more interest I will dig up a mess of citations for you (Although Nesbit’s book “Culture of Honor” and Homicide by Daly and Wilson are worth looking into to see some of the neat manifestations of the death rate.)
Its not just crime and dying earlier that show men being weaker/poorer.
The XX chromosome is inherently biologically substantially stronger than an XY combination.
Men have much/many more birth defects, mostly because they only have one X chromosome. e.g. baldness and color blindness are rare in females. The liklihood of men having a bad gene is many times that of any female, since the Y chromosome isnt much good for anything, and they dont have the backup X chromosome. If there is a bad gene on an X chromosome, the other X chromosome with a good allele can take its place on a female - the male does not have that advantage and is stuck if his X has a bad gene.
It is also that most pedophiles are male, most rapists are men, most spouse beaters are men, more men than women are into pornography and most sexual deviations, more men have mental problems, fewer men than women get thru college, more men are divorced than women by 2:1, more men are alcoholics, more men are drug addicts, more men abandon spouses and children, men have worse driving records more tickets and more accidents, etc.
But, its not just biological. The culture reinforces poor behavior in males, many men are just not brought up to be well mannered ladies. Instead men are taught to spit, curse, fight, get dirty, talk/act rowdy, dress poorly/uncoordinated, messed up hair, and make bodily noises in public.
If men spent as much time trying to improve aspects of themselves as they do in watching/reading/talking about professional sports, perhaps the gaps between women and men wouldnt be so huge.
Generalizations are always tricky. You can always find examples and exceptions for almost anything. And when people talk about “crime” they usually mean violent street crime. Some of the male/female statistics might look different if they focused on shoplifting, bad checks and con games. But apart from cultural history, testosterone, etc., I wonder if at least part of the reason men are more likely to commit crime might be that a woman can almost always find some legal way to support herself. Even a woman with limited education and skills can work as a waitress, a kitchen helper, a hotel housekeeper etc. (no disrespect intended to anyone who does these things). With steady employment, she can pay her bills and at least hope for a chance at advancement. She is also less likely to engage in conduct that might cost her the job. Unskilled labor for men is harder to find, and much less secure. A lot of old-style factory work just isn’t around anymore–it’s been shipped abroad. Modern American factories require employees to have computer skills in addition to basic facility with English and math and good work attitudes. Day labor is just that–a day at a time. People commit crimes for a lot of reasons, but at least one of them is a need for money and no other way to get it.
This is my first post here after lurking for months, God help me (waves nervously), so I’ll make it short ‘n’ sweet.
The ominously named DrDeth states:
Heh, I guess I should just say “cite?” but I’m new and don’t have the cajones to do so. So I’ll just smile sweetly and humbly as I mention that I’m honestly surprised to hear that husband-beating is nearly as comon as wife-beating. Do you have any statistics for that? Ditto to the notion that no man would ever be able to convince a jury ‘he had to’?"
It’s important to note that I strongly suspect that men might be less likely to report being abused by a female perpetrator. Unfortunately it’s impossible to include such unreported crimes in these calculations.
Again, please note that I’m not disagreeing that men can be victims of abuse committed by women. And I certainly believe that in such cases these vile perpetrators should be subjected to the same harsh legal reprecussions as their scumsucking male counterparts.
BTW, there’s this fascinating article (perhaps not for the squeamish, it’s a forensic nurse site) regarding male homicide victims of female killers. There is definitely a disparity between the incidence of women who are exonerated for killing their spouses/partners, and men who do likewise. The article goes into detail explaining the pathology and possible differences in how/why women kill men. The author, Lt. Cynthia T. Ferguson, does make this interesting observation that might explain part of the reason why women are treated less harshly in such incidents:
Whew! Well, those are the results of my research. DrDeth do you have more info to add to the mix? If there’s more current data on male/female domestic abuse incidences, I’d love to check it out.
Oy, sorry, I know this isn’t answering the original question, and I sure as heck don’t wanna commit thread hijacking in my very first post!
– Kira
Please don’t pit me. I’m new and fragile and tentative, like a fawn.
Are you kidding me? Are you trying to derail this thread into a gender war? Men are weaker/poorer than women biologically?
Please provide cites for the claims that men have more mental illness, alcoholism, and drug addiction. I am genuinely curious.
It is not possible for more men to be divorced than women, unless you mean to say that women remarry more than men. I cannot figure out how that is relevant to anything.
Why do you conclude that all the deficiencies in men are biological, and then go on to state social disadvantages for men? Do you not see the logical disconnect there?
Overall, men are better drivers than women, btw. Men drive 74% more miles, yet women have 11% more crashes per mile. Cite:
Originally posted by Susanann
more men have mental problems, fewer men than women get thru college, more men are divorced than women by 2:1, more men are alcoholics, more men are drug addicts, more men abandon spouses and children,
ok, it might be more than “Twice”, it is somewhere between 2:1 and 3:1 .
Men far outnumber women in not being able to live up to expectations as far as what is required of a spouse, therefore, they are divorced 2 to 3 times as often, a very significant statistic.
Your joking about this just perpetuates it. The fact is that men do not spend as much time as women trying to improve themselves, trying to have good manners, trying to be nice, curteous, gracious, etc, trying to have a good appearance, etc.
Women their entire lives spend a lot of their time trying to improve themselves in some way, hair, nails, makeup, classes, college, social groups, communication, etc.
Men spend a lot of time talking/watching/reading about professional sports.
If men spent more time improving themselves, going to college, having a better appearance, etc, maybe so many of them would not be divorced by women.
I wouldn’t equate pornography with sexual deviations. Men’s taste for pornography is easily explained by the differences in sexual arousal and attraction between men and women.
That has a lot to do with how women are treated by the police, not just the way they drive or their biology. Every cop who’s pulled me over has given me a ticket, but one of my female friends has been pulled over more than I have, and never been ticketed.
If men and women equally failed to live up to the expectations of marraige, then one would expect that the statistics of who INITIATES the divorce to be about equal.
What I am talking about, is who INITIATES the divorce.
More women “divorce” men, than men “divorce” women, overwelmingly.
