Women and crime in the United States: A Marxian explanation

Abstract

The paper briefly reviews the leading theories of female crime causation that surfaced in the twentieth century and proposes an alternative, theoretical orientation using a Marxian approach. This explanation uses existing theoretical and empirical studies to account for: 1) the means by which women are defined as criminal, 2) the class relationship between female criminals and the general population of women, and 3) the system by which control over both the population of female criminals and the general population of women is legitimized. The paper also examines the relationship between the victimization of women and the opportunity structure as class‐based.