Michelle Commiskey
Jan. 29, 2009
2:41 pm
The ladies of Britain are on a crime spree. The number of crimes committed by British girls, ages 10 to 17, has risen 22 percent in the past four years. Racially aggravated crimes more than doubled, violent attacks rose 48 percent, and public order offenses went up 37 percent.
Don’t let these statistics give girls all the bad rap, though. Although the rate of boys committing crimes dropped 9 percent over the same four year period, they still committed far more that the girls; 220,024 versus 57,962. The boys also carried far more burglaries, vehicle thefts, and drug offences than the girls.
So why are the girls of Britain being caught for more crimes? The theory is that the girls have a “willingness to admit offences has increased in tandem with society's expectations about their behavior”. And also, the females tend to commit “petty crimes”. The British police force finds it easier to bring soft targets to justice, the soft targets being the girls and the soft offence being petty crimes.
There has always been an ongoing battle between males and females…apparently that battle includes crime in England. I think that perhaps the apprehension of female criminals has risen because of those females, themselves. Even though their crimes are not as serious and dangerous as the boys’, the ladies feel guilty. I think that the girls’ conscience gets to them much sooner than it would the boys’. Or maybe, after committing the crime, the girls feel that the action was not proper for that of a lady and aim to correct their mistakes while the boys enjoy the adrenaline and “manliness” of criminal actions.
http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE50S54F20090129
1 comment:
This article is very interesting to me. I know crimes were increasing abruptly, but I assume that it was males than females. So the question is Why are females committing crimes now? And what kind of crimes? the quotes about girls getting caught more I can kind of agree to that. Since female are considered to be more emotional and sensitve to certain topics, I would agree that female may start to feel a little guilty and start confessing things. But I like this article because it gets you to thinking that other countries are going through the same issues as the U.S., maybe even worse.
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