Early feminist criminologists believed that the expanding opportunities for women explained the surging female crime rates in the 20th century. The present paper considers this theory by exploring the differences in treatment of females in the United States and Nigeria and assessing their impact on female criminality in the two countries.
The United States, a developed country that enjoys a certain degree of gender equality, experiences higher female crime rates compared to societies where women do not have the same access to education, employment, and other resources and opportunities. It is somewhat difficult to precisely assess the differences since many of these countries do not have a well-developed and reliable judicial and penal system that produces credible and continuously collected data. Moreover, in countries dominated by radical Islam women’s punishments frequently lie outside of the criminal justice domain as women are subjected to stoning, burning, and other lynching practices (Ebeniro, 2011). Nevertheless, certain assessment can be made. In 2013, approximately 111,300 female prisoners constituted 14 percent of the total US prison population (Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, 2015). In comparison, in Nigeria only 756 women were incarcerated in 2004, representing just 1.9 percent of the overall prison population (Ebeniro, 2011, p. 30).
The United States and Nigeria differ significantly in terms of treatment of females in their societies: while the US ranks in the top twenty in the Global Gender Gap Index, Nigeria is at the very bottom of the list, ranking 106th (Ebeniro, 2011). At the same time, Nigerian women typically have some access, albeit limited, to education and professional opportunities, including politics, although they are significantly underrepresented in the local parliament. The legal system, partially based on the Sharia law, has been designed to preserve the men’s privileged positions, and violence against women is legitimized (Ebeniro, 2011, p. 32). In the United States, women enjoy comparatively broad legal protection, including protection against domestic violence. Both countries, however, have a certain degree of institutionalized and systemic gender-based discrimination, although the human rights violations in Nigeria are far more serious. In the United States, patriarchy can be divided into public, meaning economic marginalization and wage gap, and private, or domestication of women within their households (Parker & Reckdenwald, 2008). Nigeria, on the other hand, maintains such customs as female genitalia mutilation and polygyny (Ebeniro, 2011).
Early feminist criminologists explained the growing female crime rates with the emancipation thesis that posits that liberation opened up new opportunities for women to commit crimes (Lilly, Cullen & Ball, 2014, p. 242). Certainly, this theory contributes to the understanding of the nature of female crimes. For instance, in Nigeria, it is more difficult for women to engage in white-collar crimes merely because they do not have the access to the necessary resources and positions. Moreover, Nigerian women also have much more at stake as their punishment and treatment within the criminal justice administration system tends to be far harsher (Ebeniro, 2011). However, one can assume that structural and cultural sexism play a role of, so to say, an initial “gatekeeper.” While women in highly oppressive societies do not engage in criminal activities because of the discrimination, gender equality does not always explain the rising female crime rates in more developed societies like the US. Thus, the study conducted by Parker and Reckdenwald (2008) did not find support for their hypotheses that public and private patriarchy would account for differences in urban and rural female crimes.
Understanding the treatment of females in other countries sheds more light on the challenges and problems that women around the world face on a regular basis. Awareness of these issues allows people to adjust their behavior to address the systemic biasing and stereotyping of women to build more effective relationships.
References
Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency. (2015). Statistics on women offenders. Web.
Ebeniro, C.D. (2011). The problems of administration of justice on female offenders in Nigeria. African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies, 4(2), 28-36.
Lilly, R.J., Cullen, F.T., & Ball, R.A. (2014). Criminological theory: Context and consequences (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Parker, K.F., & Reckdenwald, A. (2008). Women and crime in context: Examining the linkages between patriarchy and female offending across space. Feminist Criminology, 3(1), 5-24.