NCJ Number
79148
Journal
Sociological Spectrum Volume: 1 Issue: 1 Dated: (January-March 1981) Pages: 39-52
Date Published
1981
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This paper examines the extent to which the offender's sex affects people's evaluations of the crime by using a sample of 273 students answering questionnaires describing 25 different offenses.
Abstract
One questionnaire consistently identified the offender as an adult male, while the other identified the offender as an adult female. Respondents were asked to rate the seriousness of each act on a 10-point scale and to indicate what type of reaction or penalty the courts, on the average, should impose on the various types of offenses, given a choice of 10 reactions. The choices ranged in severity from no punishment to such sentences as psychiatric treatment, fines, probation, jail, prison, or death. As a group, for most cases, the subjects did not consider gender when evaluating the offenses. The sample did distinguish and react to the crimes on the basis of their notions of the qualities of the acts and issues of harm. In those few cases where unequal ratings were given, neither a male nor a female offender was consistently singled out for a more severe reaction. In these cases, male offenders were judged more harshly for violent acts, and females were judged more harshly for moral offenses, reflecting society's double standard. The offender's sex did not seem to matter in the rating of political, white-collar, and public order offenses. Implications of study findings are discussed. Four tables and 15 references are included.