A societal analysis regarding the distribution of criminal offenses between men and women reveals two facts that have hardly changed visibly for years. Firstly, the female share of the population consistently remains slightly above 50 percent. Secondly, the proportion of female suspects in criminal offenses has ranged between 20 and 26 percent for many years, albeit with a slight upward trend. The discrepancy is even more drastic concerning incarceration. Only five percent of incarcerated individuals are women (Source: jva-fuer-frauen). These figures raise the question of why the proportion of female offenders is so low. There are no truly reliable findings, only sociological and psychological interpretation attempts. The figures in the graphic are self-explanatory; we want to focus on the underlying reasons.

Why, However, Do Women Clearly Dominate in Certain Types of Offenses?

It can be said that prostitution is a typically female domain. However, one must also consider a societal aspect here: patriarchal structures.

Forced prostitution following human trafficking is an area considered a male domain. In this context, we must differentiate between “voluntary” prostitution on the one hand and forced prostitution on the other.

Even though our graphic also shows human trafficking – meaning abduction, parental child abduction, and child trafficking – as female-dominated, the reason for the high female rate likely lies in cases of parental child abduction. Here, mothers who unlawfully take back their children after custody has been revoked are the cause of the comparatively high number.

Classic human trafficking falls under organized crime, a field almost 100 percent dominated by men.

The reasons for falsely reporting an offense against sexual self-determination are difficult to explain. In this context, a Bavarian lawyer refers to a study from Bavaria, according to which over eleven percent of the women hoped for sympathy and attention from their social environment (Source: RA Odebralski).

The high rate of female offenders in the medical field can perhaps be explained by the employment figures. After all, 80 percent of those employed there are female.

Against the backdrop that child-rearing and care are still predominantly the responsibility of mothers in most cases, it is not surprising that the proportion of female perpetrators in child neglect cases is very high.

Procurement Crime – Clear Differences in Methods

However, the topic of procurement crime among drug addicts offers an excellent starting point for observing gender-specific behavior. Men tend towards theft or robbery; classic examples include broken-into cars or smashed shop windows. Female drug addicts, in contrast, often resort to procurement prostitution, which is also classified as an offense but is, from their perspective, non-violent.

Interpretation Attempts Since the 19th Century

The Italian forensic physician Cesare Lombroso postulated the so-called equivalence thesis as early as 1891. His first thesis was the prostitution theory, which stated that women prone to prostitution also act as criminals. With this, he attempted to prove that women were just as criminally inclined as men but could better conceal this due to the innate deceitfulness of the female sex. This thesis, entirely unproven, was also advocated in Germany until 1975. Another point mentioned was women’s supposed greater tendency towards order, resulting from the dormant egg cell, whereas men were supposedly shaped by mobile sperm. Another equivalence assumption posits that the male-dominated law enforcement and justice system acts more leniently towards women – the so-called chivalry thesis (Source: Wikipedia).

The pinnacle of these crude theories was the assumption that women were so mentally confused during their menstruation that they would steal indiscriminately (Source: Süddeutsche Zeitung).

Applied Criminology Provides More Well-Founded Statements

The data collected by applied criminology are not based on statistics but on individual case analyses. Compiled together, these allow for conclusions to be drawn about the causes of criminal offenses in sum.

For the majority of the subjects, it was true that they already tended towards significant behavioral problems in childhood and adolescence. These resulted from or led to problems in the parental home, followed by an above-average early detachment. A particular characteristic observed in women is the loss of exercising social responsibility, including the neglect of children. Analogous to male offending, the loss of “order in life” is also considered a trigger for criminal acts. These criteria for order include, for example, a stable partnership or a job. The loss of one of these things usually leads to an economic downturn for the affected individuals, which they then attempt to compensate for through criminal offenses (Source: Petra Fischer-Jehle: Frauen im Strafvollzug).

Will Women Become More Involved in Crime in the Future?

The American criminologist Freda Adler established the thesis in 1974 that the female crime rate would also rise with the emancipation movement. The convergence of gender roles would also become apparent in this segment. As evidence, she pointed to the increasing number of offenses among female adolescents (Source: Freda Adler: Sisters in Crime. The Rise of the New Female Criminal). However, this thesis is countered by the fact that female criminality was significantly higher in the 18th and 19th centuries.