About three out of every four people arrested in the U.S. are men. That rate is similar across the world.
BIG THINK
Serial killers are rare. Perhaps a dozen are active today, down from an estimated 198 in 1987. Female serial killers are even rarer, representing roughly 10% of the total. The most famous might be Aileen Wuornos, who was immortalized in the movie Monster. As a street prostitute, she robbed and murdered seven men between 1989 and 1990. For her crimes, Wuornos was executed by lethal injection in 2002.
Wuornos’ story no doubt fascinates the public because it is so unheard of. Women tend to shy away from committing crimes of all kinds. About one-quarter of people arrested in the U.S. each year are female. Women only commit 20% of violent crimes and 37% of property crimes. They perpetrate only one out of every 10 homicides. If you break down criminal acts into subsets such as arson, vandalism, and fraud, women commit the minority of almost all of them. The only crimes they commit at rates roughly equal to men are embezzlement and murder of a child or stepchild. So, why is it that women tend to commit far less crime than men?
Criminologists have been researching this question for decades. Over that time, they’ve explored numerous theories. First and foremost, men are more aggressive, impulsive, and inclined to take risks. Studies find this sex difference holds true even from a young age, before cultural influences can “program” boys and girls into prescribed gender roles. That suggests there’s a biological component to male recklessness, likely stemming from the sway of higher testosterone levels. One study found that for every single adolescent girl who commits a minor criminal act, 15 boys do the same. This disparity in adolescent delinquency can send girls and boys on very different life paths.
Social explanations
Although past criminologists tended to point to biological differences between the sexes and say “case closed” when it comes to imbalances in offending, today’s researchers are more discerning, citing various social factors that reduce the likelihood of women committing crimes. For starters, over the vast majority of history and in many cultures today, women have been confined to child-rearing and household roles. From a young age, they’ve been encouraged to be nurturing and caring. As they grew up, they typically lacked the independence of men, and so they simply had less time, freedom, and opportunity to engage in criminal acts. What’s more, women also haven’t typically been pressured to be breadwinners, reducing the incentive to steal.
Another theory suggests that women do commit crimes at rates closer to those of men, but have historically been overlooked or treated leniently by authorities. Men have historically dominated law enforcement, and many of these men likely held stereotypical views about women. These views meant that female criminals may have been able to escape apprehension. (“She couldn’t have done it. She’s a woman!”) And if caught, they might have been turned over to husbands or family to deal out punishment.
Since the 1950s, as women across the world have gained greater independence and traditional gender stereotypes have faded, the offending gap between men and women has indeed narrowed. Researchers have broadly found that men are committing crimes at lower rates than in the past, while women are doing so at similar or slightly higher rates.
Still, a significant offending divide persists between the sexes, particularly when it comes to violent crime. And the chasm doesn’t seem likely to close anytime soon. This could suggest that gendered cultural stereotypes remain sticky, but it more likely indicates that biology is the driving force behind the gap.
