Women Criminals, Contemporary

Women's criminal behavior has only become a focus for criminologists and criminal justice officials since the 1970s. The social constructions of gender have guided the examination and treatment of the genders when responding to their criminal behavior. Earlier history uncovers the belief that women were above the lures of criminal behavior, and hence they had been ignored, while men were defined as possessing criminal tendencies. As a result, people know more about and respond more harshly to male criminal behavior. However, as social ...