Women, Crime and Criminology: A Feminist Critique. by Carol SmartReview by: Sarah L. BoggsSocial Forces, Vol. 57, No. 3 (Mar., 1979), pp. 1027-1028Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2577401 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 09:38

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Forces.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.154 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 09:38:29 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Book Reviews / 1027

employed in their respective setting (group-oriented custody, individual-oriented custody, individual-oriented treatment, and group-oriented treatment). The findings are neither new nor unexpected. Juveniles in less custody-oriented environs have a more favorable outlook on themselves, on staff, and on institutional programs. These findings are replicas of those reported by the "methodologically weak" studies. Does this mean that the earlier comparative organizational studies were more methodologically sound than Feld argues, or rather that the present study is really no significant improvement? Either way, the findings are neither extraordinary nor do they suggest policies for neutralizing violence among inmates.

One significant shortcoming of the analysis is that what constitutes violence is never specified. Moreover, the data presented in the tables do not always fully support the interpretations in the text. Finally, many tables employ what seems to be an average of percentages for the individually oriented custody and individually oriented treatment cottages (although this is not explained): if these are averages, then some tables are plagued with monumental rounding errors.

On balance, this book provides the reader who has no knowledge of what went on in Massachusetts with an informative overview of the problems and prospects of correctional reform. However, it offers little to those who are already familiar with the comparative organization literature.

Women, Crime and Criminology: A Feminist Critique. By Carol Smart. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978. 208 pp. $5.50.

Reviewer: SARAH L. BOGGS, Uniiversity of Missouri, St. Louis

Smart's book is an addition to the nascent literature on female criminality and deviance, discussing sexual biases inherent in legal codes and practices, in the resulting statistical data (with illustrations primarily from the United Kingdom), in explanations, and in treatment programs. She challenges these biases with alternative interpretations, but often substitutes one set of what she calls common-sensical beliefs for another no less culturally conditioned; thus, many of her explanations and conclusions serve better as hypotheses. For example, her unqualified statement that women jurors (regardless of class, age, or ideology) would be more sympathetic than men toward rape complainants needs empirical investigation.

Smart's theoretical orientation leads her to assert a progressive development in the explanation of male criminality-from Beccaria, to positivism, to subcultural and interactionist theorists, and finally to a Marxist influence-a sequence that she argues should be followed in the study of female criminality. She dichotomizes studies into classical (Lombroso and Ferrera, Thomas, and Pollack) and contempo- rary (Cowie et al. and Konopka), and criticizes both types for bio-psychological determinism. But her own analysis does not demonstrate clear theoretical progression; for example, she describes Cowie et al. (1968) as "contemporary counterparts to Lombroso (1859)" and Konopka's work (1966) as "in fact very close to Thomas' (1923)." Thus, she indicates persistence or recurrence, not replacement of ideas. Another confusion is the discussion of Thomas' work as "a

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.154 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 09:38:29 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

1028 / Social Forces / vol. 57:3, march 1979

highly functionalist perspective," although that orientation is omitted from her sequence.

One of Smart's major premises is that criminal and deviant behavior is rational, logical, and meaningful to the actor. This position poses the dilemma, recognized but unresolved, that even offenders may understand and interpret their behaviors according to prevailing criminological theory which has filtered into everyday perspectives. And Smart does not deal with the problem of different meanings attached to the same behavior-for example, by a woman and a man in the case of what to the former means rape, but to the latter means something else. Moreover, she discusses techniques of neutralization and differential access to opportunity structures, but she does not identify their original statements or place them clearly in her developmental scheme.

Smart's real contribution is in countering the myth that females are treated more leniently than males by the law, amply drawing on recent empirical work and her own insights. Most striking are data from England and Wales on property crimes, offenses typically cited to show the leniency extended to women, where, as early as 1961, sex differentials in receiving a caution (rather than a more severe sanction) decreased with the age of offenders, and were almost negligible for adults. When rates for 1974 were calculated (based on the total number of each sex indicted, not just the number convicted), young males at younger ages were more likely to be treated leniently than young females, and again differentials virtually disappeared for adults.

Smart closes with the question of whether mental illness is a functional equivalent to crime for women, and her answer is "probably not"-certainly not because of inherent differences between the sexes. Sex differences in these two types of behavior most likely result from social-structural forces.

Surveying Victims: A Study of the Measurement of Criminal Victimization, Perceptions of Crime, and Attitudes to Criminal Justice. By Richard F. Sparks, Hazel G. Genn, and David J. Dodd. New York: Wiley, 1977. 276 pp. $24.95.

Reviewoer: ANTHONY MEADE, Institute for Juvenile Research

The major concern of this work is the accuracy of the victim survey method and it appears that great care was exercised from research design through administration and analysis of results. The book quickly gets to the task of checking survey results against official records for randomly selected samples of reported crime victims living in three inner London areas. Ninety-two percent of the first sample (N = 241) correctly reported their victimization incidents to the survey interviewers. These individuals were victimized sometime during the first ten months of 1972. Interviewing took place in January and February of 1973 and asked about victimization in the "past year." The authors conclude that recall was not a serious problem.

The second sample (N = 54) had been vicitimized sometime during the last three months of 1971. Since 18 percent of them telescoped their incidents into 1972, the authors warn of possible overestimation of victimization using self-reports. Both

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.154 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 09:38:29 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions