FEMINIST THEORY, CRIME, AND JUSTICE*, Lecture notes of Criminology

Download FEMINIST THEORY, CRIME, AND JUSTICE* and more Lecture notes Criminology in PDF only on Docsity! FEMINIST THEORY, CRIME, AND JUSTICE* SALLY S. SIMPSON University of Maryland Feminist research has expanded beyond its origins in Women’s Studies to influence the more traditionally bounded academic disciplines. Crimi- nology has not been immune to these excursions. This paper presents an overview of feminist theory/methods and its applications within select areas of crime and justice studies. Points of intra-theoretical divergence as well as directions for future feminist contributions are noted. “WHY CAN’T A WOMAN BE MORE LIKE A MAN?” One is tempted to respond to Henry Higgins’s familiar lament with a cyni- cal observation: criminological theory assumes a woman is like a man. As many feminist-criminologists have noted (early critics include Heidensohn, 1968; Klein, 1973; and Smart, 1976), most middle-range and macro theories of crime generously assume that what is true for the gander is true for the goose (see also Harris, 1977). As tempting as this simple assertion might be, however, a closer inspection reveals a more complicated picture. Some feminist critics (Daly and Chesney-Lind, 1988) suggest that criminol- ogy, like other social sciences, is androcentric, that is, study of crime and the justice process is shaped by male experiences and understandings of the social world. Such studiedrealities form the core of “general” theories of crime/ deviance without taking female experience, as crime participant or victim, into account: [Men] create the world from their own point of view, which then becomes the truth to be described . . . Power to create the world from one’s point of view is power in its male form (MacKinnon, 1982:23). Not all criminological research has ignored women, but all too often, pre- 1970s research on female offenders and victims of crime fell prey to unreflect- ing sexism and, in its more extreme form, misogyny. Females who deviated from expected roles were viewed as morally corrupt, hysterical, diseased, manipulative, and devious (Glueck and Glueck, 1934). Law-violating and -conforming behaviors were believed to stem from the same etiological source-the female nature (Edwards, 1985; Klein, 1973).1 A woman, it * My thanks to Kathleen Daly, Nicole Hahn Rafter, and N. Craig Smith for their insightful comments on a draft of this paper. I was assisted in my revisions by the criticisms of three anonymous reviewers. All of the above are to be commended for their assistance, but none is responsible for the ideas and arguments contained herein. 1. This is not to suggest that biological reductionism is absent in studiedtheories of male criminality. Such explanations of male crime abound (e.g., Wilson and Herrnstein, 1985). However, with the demise of phrenology, social factors replaced biology as key CRIMINOLOGY VOLUME 27 NUMBER 4 1989 605 606 SIMPSON seemed-whether good or bad-could never be like a man. These observations are not new, but they reflect a different voice, a feminist voice, that has been added to the criminological discourse. The purpose of this review essay is to introduce feminist criminology and its intellectual par- ent, feminism, to the uninitiated reader. It would be presumptuous to suggest that all relevant studies and arguments about gender and crime are included here. Such an extensive review is more appropriate for a book, and depend- ing on the topic, it has likely already been done and done well (e.g., Eaton, 1986; Freedman, 1981; Heidensohn, 1985; Mann, 1984; Naffine, 1988; Smart, 1976). Instead, illustrative examples of different types of feminist thinking are presented to show how feminism has reframed our points of reference, underlying assumptions, and understandings about crime, victimization, and the justice process. To achieve these aims, the paper is organized into three sections. First, the perspectives and methods that constitute feminist analysis are sorted and dif- ferentiated. Second, three areas of criminological study (the female offender, female victim, and criminal justice processing) are discussed because they are key areas in which feminist approaches have been incorporated. Third, direc- tions for further integration are suggested. FEMINISM: PERSPECTIVES AND METHODS Feminism is best understood as both a world view and a social movement that encompasses assumptions and beliefs about the origins and consequences of gendered social organization as well as strategic directions and actions for social change. As such, feminism is both analytical and empirical. In its incipient form, feminist research almost exclusively focused on women-as a way of placing women at the center of inquiry and building a base of knowl- edge. As it has matured, feminism has become more encompassing, taking into account the gendered understanding of all aspects of human culture and relationships (Stacey and Thorne, 1985:305). It would be a mistake, however, to think of feminism as a single theory. Feminism has expanded into a diverse set of perspectives and agendas, each based on different definitions of the “problem,” competing conceptions of the origins and mechanisms of gender inequality/oppression, and divergent strat- egies for its eradication. Collectively, these perspectives share a concern with identifying and representing women’s interests, interests judged to be insuffi- ciently represented and accommodated within the mainstream (Oakley, 1981:335). etiological forces. These explanations have not been seriously challenged. Conversely, until the feminist critique of the 197Os, biogenic/psychogenic models of female crime went, for the most part, unchallenged. FEMINIST THEORY, CRIME, AND JUSTICE 609 science (Kuhn, 1970) has led some feminists to challenge the scientific enter- prise. Keller (1982) arranges these challenges on a political spectrum from slightly left of center (liberal feminists) to the more radical left. The liberal critique takes an equal employment opportunity approach by observing the relative absence of women from the scientific community. This view “in no way conflicts either with traditional conceptions of science or with current liberal, egalitarian politics” (p. 114). From this point, however, the criticisms become increasingly fundamental to the way knowledge is produced; they range from charges of bias in select- ing research topics and interpreting results to rejecting rationality and objec- tivity as purely male products. More radical feminists have adopted a methodological strategy that is in direct opposition to the scientific method. In order to “see” women’s existence (which has been invisible to objective scientific methods) “feminist women must deliberately and courageously inte- grate . . . their own experiences of oppression and discrimination . . . into the research process” (Miles, 1983: 12 1). Feminist methods are necessarily subjec- tivist, transdisciplinary, nonhierarchical, and empowering. Where one falls along Keller’s feminist-political spectrum will determine one’s choice of methods (i.e., quantitative versus qualitative) and whether one sees methods and theory as interrelated as opposed to separate and distinct. Thus, methods used by feminists are more diverse than typically credited (for examples, see Jayarate, 1983; Reinhartz, 1983; Stacey and Thorne, 1985). Together, the above theoretical and methodological points form a feminist perspective. All have been incorporated into criminology, but some have had a greater impact than others. The goal in the next section is to identify the ways in which these approaches and methods have changed the way criminol- ogists address the problems of crime and justice. INCORPORATING THE FRAMEWORKS THE FEMALE OFFENDER The stirrings of feminist criminology are nearly two decades old. Heiden- sohn (1968: 17 l), in a “pre-feminist” paper, bemoaned the state of knowledge about female deviance and called for a “crash programme of research which telescopes decades of comparable studies of males.” Later, Klein (1973) and Smart (1976) were to bring explicitly feminist perspectives to their critiques of extant theoretical and empirical work on the female offender. Klein, a Marxist-feminist, noted the absence of economic and other social explana- tions for female crime. Smart, working within more of a radical feminist per- spective, stressed the linkages among sexist theory, patriarchy, and sexism in practice-specifically identifying the relationship between stereotypical assumptions about the causes of female crime and how female offenders are controlled and treated. 610 SIMPSON Both Klein and Smart set an agenda for a new feminist criminology, but their more radical approaches were derailed by the publication of Simon’s Women and Crime and F. Adler’s Sisters in Crime (1975). Claiming that a “new” female offender was emerging (white collar and/or male like), Simon and Adler generated tremendous interest in female crime (a clear aim of incipient feminism). But, tying the female offender’s emergence to women’s liberation brought about a “moral panic” (Smart, 1976), which was viewed by some as a blacklash to the women’s movement.3 In Chesney-Lind’s (1980:29) words, it represented “another in a century long series of symbolic attempts to keep women subordinate to men by threatening those who aspire for equal- ity with the images of the witch, the bitch, and the whore.”4 As with many social problems of our day, female crime became interesting only when it transcended the expected boundaries of class, race, and gender. As a “quasi-theory,” the liberation-crime relationship had great appeal for nonfeminist crimino1ogists.s But tests of the thesis were less than supportive. In fact most discredited it (Austin, 1982; Giordano et al., 1981), and others found evidence of a link between female crime and economic marginalization (Datesman and Scarpitti, 1980; Gora, 1982; Mukherjee and Fitzgerald, 198 1; Steffensmeier, 1978, 1981; Steffensmeier and Cobb, 1981). The new female offender identified by Simon and Adler was more myth than reality (Steffen- smeier, 1978). These conclusions did not differ substantially from Klein’s (1973), yet they came years after her original critique-a fact that dramati- cally illustrates the marginality of feminist criminology at the time. Yet, sub- sequent research on the causes of female crime has clearly buttressed the economic/class perspectives of Marxist/socialist feminists as well as the 3. The links between women’s liberation and changing patterns of female criminality were made before. Bishop (1931) complained that women’s liberation during the 1920s had three negative results: ( I ) more women were turning criminal; (2) a “better” class of women were becoming criminal more often; and (3) women were becoming sexually crimi- nal at a younger age (cited in Rasche, 1974). To be fair, both Simon and Adler had more to offer than mere speculation about the “dark side” of women’s liberation. Simon’s research documents the basic inequities between male and female correctional facilities and treatments. By attributing these differ- ences to male chivalry toward women, she takes a liberal feminist approach to the problem of gender and justice, an approach that heavily influenced later works in this area. Adler’s work, while more impressionistic than Simon’s, attempted to explain differences in crime rates between white and black females. Although her interpretations gave rise to more systematic examinations of intra-gender race differences in crime that are highly critical of her interpretations and methods, the issues she raised are of primary importance to most feminist criminologists today. A research focus on gender alone does not qualify one as a feminist just as a focus on class does not make one a marxist. Rather, as part of their endeavor, feminist criminol- ogists must seriously consider the nature of gender relations and the peculiar brand of oppression that patriarchal relations bring (Leonard, 1982). 4. 5 . FEMINIST THEORY, CRIME, AND JUSTICE 61 1 “opportunity” perspectives of the liberal feminists (Ageton, 1983; Box, 1983; Box and Hale, 1984; Elliott and Ageton, 1980; Giordano et al., 1981). In retrospect, feminist criminology both gained and lost from the narrow focus on liberation and crime. On the plus side, we gained a better insight into the historical (Mukherjee and Fitzgerald, 198 1) and cross-cultural (F. Adler, 1981; Plenska, 1980) patterns of female crime. But because the libera- tion thesis was so limited, it diverted attention from the material and struc- tural forces that shape women’s lives and experiences. It is in these areas that women of color and socialist and radical feminist criminologists are more apt to focus etiological attention (Hagan et al., 1985, 1987; Lewis, 1981; Miller, 1985; Rafter and Natalizia, 1981; Wilson, 1985). WOMEN VICTIMS: THE RADICAL FEMINIST CRITIQUE Liberal feminism has dominated studies of the female offender, but the same is not true of victimology (Daly and Chesney-Lind, 1988). Shifting away from analyses that blame the victim for her victimization (Amir, 1967),6 radical feminists have constructed alternative interpretations of offender-victim relationships and victim experiences of criminal justice (Chapman and Gates, 1978; Klein, 1981; Wood, 1981). Brownmiller’s (1975) historical and cross-cultural study of rape brought a radical feminist perspective to the center of public consciousness. Building on the argument that rape is not a crime of sex but rather an act of power and dominance (Greer, 1970), Brownmiller concluded that rape is a tool in the arsenal of all men to control all women. Radical feminists have reframed the ways in which rape is commonly understood in our society. Rather than a crime of sex, it is more apt to be viewed as one of male power, control, and domination. Brownmiller’s work, coupled with that of other radical feminists (e.g., Griffin, 1979; Riger and Gordon, 1981), opened a floodgate of inquiry into rape and other types of victimizations that are “uniquely feminine” (Wilson, 1985:4), such as pornog- raphy (Dworkin, 1981), battering (Dobash and Dobash, 1979; Martin, 1976; Straus et al., 1980), incest (Finkelhor, 1979; Moyer, 1985; Stanko, 1985) and sexual harassment (MacKinnon, 1979; Stanko, 1985). Guiding much of this research is the radical feminist critique of official conceptions and definitions of violence, which are viewed as male centered and incapable of incorporating the full range of female experiences of violence (i.e., from intimidation and coercion to physical violence and death). A woman-centered definition of violence is one that portrays violence as a form 6. Precipitous behavior has ranged from dressing provacatively, saying no to sex while “meaning” yes, “nagging” a spouse, Lolita-like seductiveness on the part of the vic- tim, and so on. 614 SIMPSON victims. Thus, although chivalry may be alive and well for white women, it appears to be dead (if it ever existed) for blacks. COURTS Police contact is not the only point in justice processing at which discrimi- nation can occur. Women have been found to receive more lenient treatment in the early stages of court processing (i.e., bail, release on own recognizance, and/or cash alternatives to bail; I. Nagel, 1983) and further into the process, e.g., conviction and sentencing (Bernstein et al., 1977; S. Nagel and Weitz- man, 1972; Simon, 1975). Other studies find no gender bias when controlling for crime seriousness and prior record (Farrington and Morris, 1983) or little effect from extralegal factors when legal factors and bench bias are controlled (I. Nagel, 1983). Variation in sentencing may be related to so-called counter- type offenses, that is, women are treated more harshly when processed for nontraditional female crimes, like assault (Bernstein et al., 1977; S. Nagel and Weitzman, 1972), or when they violate female sexual norms (Chesney-Lind, 1973; Schlossman and Wallach, 1978). Given variable-specification problems, however, some of these findings are potentially spurious. Once again, race may confound these effects. Spohn et al. (1982) address the issue of paternalism in sentencing, especially for black women. Control- ling for prior record and attorney type, they found that black women are incarcerated significantly less often than black men, but about as often as white men. They conclude that the apparently lenient treatment of black women is not due to paternalism in their favor but rather to the racial dis- crimination against black vis-a-vis white men. Studies of court processing are not entirely dominated by liberal perspec- tives. More critical perspectives emphasize social power and patriarchal con- trol as the primary mechanisms through which justice is gendered (Kruttschnitt, 1982, 1984). Eaton (1986:35) argues that magistrate courts in Great Britain (the lower courts) reinforce the dominant imagery of justice (i.e., courts are ostensibly fair and just) while they maintain the status quo: “It is in these courts that the formal rules of society-the laws-are endorsed; it is here, too, that the informal, unwritten rules regulating social relations [e.g., gender, class, and race] are re-enacted.’’ When are females apt to be subjected to formal mechanisms of control? When other, more informal, constraints are lacking or disrupted. Kruttschnitt (1982, 1984) suggests that sentencing outcomes are affected by a woman’s social status and/or her respectability. Differential sentencing among women is tied to the degree to which women are subjected to formal versus informal social control in their everyday lives. Daly (1987a, 1989b) and Eaton (1986, 1987) offer convincing evidence that the most important factor determining sentence outcome, once prior record FEMINIST THEORY, CRIME, AND JUSTICE 615 and offense seriousness are controlled, is marital and/or familial status.’ Marital status.has been found to matter for women (married receive more lenient sentences) but not for men (Farrington and Morris, 1983; I. Nagel, 1981) or to be as important for both (Daly, 1987a, 1987b). Pretrial release and sentencing are seen to be both “familied” and “gendered.” They are familied in that court decisions regarding the removal of men and women from families “elicit different concerns from the court” (Daly 1987a:154). They are gendered in that women’s care of others and male economic support for families represent “different types of dependencies in family life” (p. 154). Men and women without family responsibilities are treated similarly, but more harshly than familied men and women. Women with families, however, are treated with the greatest degree of leniency due to “the differing social costs arising from separating them from their families” (Daly, 1987b3287). The economic role played by familied men can, more eas- ily, be covered by state entitlement programs, but it is putatively more diffi- cult to replace the functional role of familied women. Judges rationalize such sentencing disparities as necessary for keeping families together (Daly, 1989b). As these latter studies suggest, much of the observed gender bias in processing may not be a case of overt discrimination for or against women relative to men. Instead, judicial decisions may be influenced by broader soci- etal concerns about protecting nuclear families (Daly, 1989b) and the differ- ing roles and responsibilities contained therein (Eaton, 1986). It is not clear that such forms of justice are overtly paternalistic, nor are they necessarily racist. Rather, in a society that stratifies other rights and privileges by gen- der, race, and class, “equality” in sentencing may not be just (Daly, 1989a). Eaton (1986: 10-1 1) takes a somewhat different view of familied justice. In her opinion, the courts reflect the needs and interests of patriarchy and capi- talism, in which attendant inequities are reproduced. “Family-based” justice is a visible manifestation of the patriarchal and capitalist need to maintain and protect the nuclear family-within which gender and productive/repro- ductive relations first emerge. CORRECTIONS As it became clear that, compared with males, female prisoners were treated differently (in some cases more leniently and in others more harshly), liberal feminist perspectives came to dominate research questions and policy considerations (see, Haft, 1980; Heide, 1974; Simon, 1975). The linkages between female incarceration and male control of female sex- uality are developed by radical feminists (Chesney-Lind, 1973; Smart, 1976). Rasche (1 974), for example, describes how prostitutes with venereal disease These effects appear to be strongest for black defendants (Daly, 1989a). 7. 616 SIMPSON were prosecuted and institutionalized, with the “cure” as a condition of release. Nondiseased prostitutes were less likely to go to jail or prison. Cer- tain prison practices, such as checking for evidence of a hymen during forced physical examinations and vaginal contraband searches, have been used as techniques to control the sexuality of youthful offenders and to humiliate and degrade female inmates (Burkhart, 1973; Chesney-Lind, 1986). Socialist feminists emphasize how prison tenure and treatment vary by class and race (Freedman, 1981; French, 1977, 1978; Lewis, 1981; Rafter, 1985). In her historical accounting of the development of women’s prisons, Rafter (1985155) observes how race determined whether and where a woman was sent to prison. Comparison of incarceration rates and in-prison treatment of black women and white women demonstrates that partiality was extended mainly to whites. Chivalry filtered them out of the prison system, help- ing to create the even greater racial imbalances among female than male prisoner populations. And partiality toward whites contributed to the development of a bifurcated system, one track custodial and predomi- nantly black, the other reformatory and reserved mainly for whites. The bifurcated system of women’s corrections emerges in part from two competing images of female nature. In one view, women are seen as fragile and immature creatures, more childlike than adult. Consequently, the female offender is perceived as a “fallen woman,” in need of guidance but not a true danger to society (Rasche, 1974). The reformatory is perfectly suited to such an offender. Primarily staffed by reform-minded middle-class women, reformatory training programs emphasized skills that would turn the white, working-class misdemeanants into proper (and class-appropriate) women, that is, good servants or wives (Rafter, 1985:82). In custodial prisons, however, a different archetype dominated. Women’s “dark side,” their inherent evil and immorality (Smart, 1976) shaped prison philosophy. Here, the predominantly black felons (who were perceived as more masculine, more self-centered, volatile, and dangerous) were treated like men-only, given the conditions of their incarceration (i.e., fewness of numbers and at the mercy of violent male offenders), their equality was tanta- mount to brutal treatment and often death (Rafter, 1985:181). The degree to which prisons function as something other than just places of punishment and/or treatment is a popular theme in neo-Marxist literature. Extending this interpretation to women, Marxist-feminists (e.g., Wilson, 1985; Hartz-Karp, 1981) argue that prisons, like other institutions of social control (e.g., mental health facilities), retool deviant women for gender- appropriate roles in capitalist patriarchal societies: If deviant women are more frequently assigned to the mental health sys- tem for social control than to the criminal justice system, it is perhaps FEMINIST THEORY, CRIME, AND JUSTICE 619 More quantitative research is needed on minority groups other than blacks (e.g., Chicanos and other Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans) to establish a better knowledge base, but qualitative studies that probe culture and subjec- tive differences between women of color and whites are also essential (Mul- lins, 1986). Feminist criminologists are guilty of the “add race and stir” shortsightedness that pervades feminist thinking. We would do well to heed Spelman’s (1988:166) reminder of how to understand and approach differ- ences among women: If we assume there are differences among women, but at the same time they are all the same as women, and if we assume the woman part is what we know from looking at the case of white middle-class women, then we appear to be talking only about white middle-class women. This is how white middle-class privilege is maintained even as we purport to recognize the importance of women’s differences. ELITE CRIME In 1977, Harris admonished criminologists for their failure to use “the sex variable” as the empirical building block for all theories of criminal deviance. Apparently (though not surprisingly) this was interpreted to apply only to street crime. The entire area of white-collar, corporate, and organizational crime has not been examined from a feminist perspective. Officially, women are underrepresented in white-collar crime data although recent Bureau of Justice Sfatistics (1987) data suggest that women have made inroads into this formerly male domain. Similar claims are made regarding female penetration of the upper reaches of organized crime (Simpson, 1987). Yet, Daly (1988) finds neither the crime types nor the offenders themselves to be particularly elite. Much of our information on female participation in organized crime is anecdotal, derived from the nonsystematic observations of male crime partici- pants. Consequently, there has been little systematic research on women’s penetration of and mobility within illicit markets. The official data on corpo- rate and other white-collar offending are equally problematic (see Reiss and Biderman, 1980). Given that both the data and interpretation/theory in these areas are suspect, feminist researchers must first develop an empirical base with which to answer the following types of questions. Is elite crime a male domain (Steffensmeier, 1983)? What are the motivations and character- istics of women who do participate (Daly, 1988; Zietz, 1981)? How are they similar and different from male offenders (P. Adler, 1985; Block, 1977; Simp- son, 1987)? What explains the official increase in female participation in white-collar offenses? At this point, feminists have barely scratched the surface of the elite crime 620 SIMPSON area. Daly (1988) is providing some direction, but much more needs to be done. DETERRENCE Gender confounds the anticipated relationship between objective sanction risks and criminal activity, that is, given that female sanction risks are low, women should have high rates of law breaking. Yet, as virtually all measures of crime document, the exact opposite is true. This empirical relationship has left deterrence theorists scrambling to make sense of the inconsistency. Richards and Tittle (1 98 1 : 183-1 85) argue that there are at least five lines of reasoning that would predict that women perceive higher levels of risk than do men. Using measures derived from these hypotheses, they find two vari- ables, stakes in conformity and perceptions of visibility, to be highly associ- ated with gender differences in perceived chances of arrest: Women may think that legal sanction is relatively certain because they are more likely to think of themselves as subject to surveillance and gen- eral social sanctions than are men. Their greater relative stakes in con- formity may make deviance more threatening for them, and lead to high sanction risk estimates (p. 196). The social control literature, in general, characterizes female conformity in a stereotypical manner. Conforming females are seen as passive, compliant, and dependent. Instead, Naffine (1988: 13 1) suggests that the conforming women be seen as “involved and engrossed in conventional life. But . . . also actively concerned about the effects of her behavior on her loved ones, partic- ularly emotionally and financially dependent children.” (Naffine is especially critical of Hagan et al., 1979, 1985, 1987.) Naffine’s image of conformity is partially influenced by Gilligan’s (1982) work in moral development theory. Gilligan’s research discovers that men and women use “a different voice” when they talk about moral responsibility. If the moral calculus of reasoning about crime is different between men and women, Gilligan may have identified a new way of conceptualizing gender differences in (1) perceived threat of sanction and (2) male-female crime rates. According to her theory, men often make moral decisions based on an “ethic of justice,” while women employ a model of decision making based on an “ethic of care.” The former is a more abstract model, expressed as a set of principles defining rights and rules (e.g., Kohlberg, 1981). In the latter, deci- sions are governed by “a psychological logic of relationships, which contrasts with the formal logic of fairness that informs the justice approach” (Gilligan, 1 9 82:73). A woman’s decision to violate the law will depend on her definition of the moral domain (i.e., how will my act affect those around me, those who count FEMINIST THEORY, CRIME, AND JUSTICE 62 1 on me). It is not surprising that in some deterrence studies (Finley and Gras- mick, 1985) women score significantly higher than men on measures of inter- nalized guilt. Because women are responsible for the care of relationships, any act that may result in their removal from that role is apt to produce a tremendous sense of guilt. Guilt may be negated if the needs of the family (for food or other valued items) outweigh the “immorality” of breaking the law to obtain them or if others are available to take on the responsibilities of care. Gilligan’s theory can be used to explain why most women do not violate the law and why they score higher on most measures of deterrence. It can also explain class and race differences in female crime rates. Lower-class and minority women are more apt to find themselves in situations that require a renegotiation of the moral domain and, given their kinship networks, they have a greater chance of finding care substitutes (Miller, 1985). Not surpris- ingly, Finley and Grasmick (1985) report that blacks score lower on certainty and severity of guilt than their white counterparts. Some critics suggest that Gilligan’s findings are biased (she interviewed mostly middle-class students) or that they may be a function of subordinate female social position, not real differences in ethical philosophies (Tronto, n.d.). These are important criticisms that must be addressed before we pro- ceed too enthusiastically. Gilligan’s conceptualization of differences in gen- der-based moral reasoning, however, are an important contribution and warrant further research. CONCLUSION Feminist criminology has changed dramatically since Klein (1 973) and Smart (1976) first called attention to it. Replicating the same political and analytical development as the broader feminist movement, feminist contribu- tions to the study of crime and justice began with more liberal approaches and have recently been giving way to more radical critiques. Liberal feminist dominance rests, in part, in ideological coherence-these approaches corre- spond closely with the ideas and beliefs embodied in most capitalist democra- cies. Thus, liberalism in any form is less threatening and more acceptable than a feminism that questions white, male, and/or capitalist privilege. 1 1 Additionally, liberal feminists speak in the same voice as a majority of social scientists, that is, they are rational, objective, and (typically) quantitative. Consequently, their data and interpretations carry more weight within the scientific community and among their peers. 11. Stacey and Thorne (1985:308) argue that more radical feminist thinking has been marginalized-ghettoized within Marxist sociology, which ensures that feminist thinking has less of a chance to influence mainstream sociological paradigms and research. 624 SIMPSON Chilton, Roland and Susan K. Datesman 1987 Gender, race, and crime: An analysis of urban arrest trends, 1960-1980. Gender and Society 1:152-171. Cloward, Richard A. and Frances Fox Piven 1979 Hidden protest: The channeling of female innovation and resistance. Signs 4:651-669. 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Wood, Pamela 1981 Young, Vernetta D. 1980 Women, race, and crime. Criminology 18:2&34. FEMINIST THEORY, CRIME, AND JUSTICE 63 1 Zietz, Dorothy 1981 Women Who Embezzle or Defraud: A Study of Convicted Felons. New York: Praeger. Sally S. Simpson is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology at the University of Maryland, College Park. In addition to her interest in issues of gender and crime, she is currently involved in studies of organizational change and its effects on the ethical dimensions of decision-making.