Violent Crime Committed By Female From The Perspective Of Criminal Sociology

With the development of women's liberation movement, the status of women was raised significantly all over the world. In China, women gradually became"the other half of the sky"after the founding of new China. However, one thing that can't be neglected is that crimes committed by women are growing along with the pace of socio-economic development. Particularly ever since the adoption of the state policy of reform and opening up, crimes by women have undergone a tremendous upsurge, with violent crimes accounting for a significant part of all the crimes by women. The growth of violent crimes by women reflects both the historical transformations and the current status of women's social status, economic status, gender status and their positions in their families. The profound effects of these social and cultural elements foster the nurturing of psychological motivations for the violent crimes committed by women and eventually induce the perpetration of such crimes. Therefore, for the purposes of crime prevention and crime control, and to provide humanitarian cares and concerns to female offenders of violent crimes, it is necessary to conduct a profound sociological analysis and meditation of the phenomenon of women committing violent crimes. On the basis of such a perspective, this paper intends to make certain contributions to the prevention and control of violent crimes by women.On the basis of social needs, and guided by the sociology of crime, this paper examines the issue of women committing violent crimes and proposes relevant solutions. This paper consists of 5 parts. Part I is the introduction where it provides an overview of the current situations of violent crimes by women in both China and some foreign countries and explains why it is necessary to study this issue. The studies, by correlating this issue with the sociology of crime, are of great importance to the prevention of violent crimes by women.Part II outlines violent crimes committed by women. First, it describes the concept and the features of violent crimes by women. A violent crime by a woman is defined as a crime committed by a woman, who uses forces or threaten the use of forces in the process of committing the crime. Such crimes usually have the following features: (a) the woman was originally a victim and in confronting another person's violence she became the offender; (b) the victims of such crimes are often close relatives or neighbors of the offender and the crimes are more often than not calculated in advance and committed stealthily;(c) the offender receives insufficient education and their ignorance leads them unwillingly to the path of crimes; (d) Female actors of violent crimes are usually driven by love and passion or forced by others. On the other hand, this paper provides a sociological study of the violent crimes by women by stressing the gender perspective of the issue and the violence involved in the crime. The principles and the methodology of the sociology of crime are applied to the analysis of the causes and the psychological nurturing process of such crimes as well as to their prevention and control. A violent crime committed by a woman is, first and foremost, a personal act and an act resulting from the interactions of various personal factors. Such crimes are attributable to a very strong social background. To some extent, we can say that such crimes are necessary products of the social environment. In addition, the fact that women have their distinct social and cultural background explains why the patterns, characteristics and structures of women's violent crimes differ from those of men's. Furthermore, compared to women in other parts of the world, Chinese women have their particular social and cultural backgrounds and therefore the patterns and characteristics of the Chinese women's violent crimes are also different from those of the foreign women's.Part III explains the social causes of the violent crimes committed by women. To explore the causes of women's violent crimes, we must start by examining women themselves and the social environment in which they live. On the part of the women themselves, inadequate education and low legal awareness are the two major causes inducing a woman to commit a violent crime. The social aspect is dealt with through the examinations of the relationship between the violent crimes by women and the family, social groups, mass media and cultural conflicts. In this paper, cultural conflicts refer to the conflicts between traditional and modern socialized roles of man and woman and their expected roles, the conflicts between traditional and modern patterns and values of marriage and families.Part IV mainly focuses on prevention and control of violent crimes by women. Women's legal awareness must be raised; China may borrow the experiences and practices of other countries, for instance, postponing the charge against female offenders, deleting women's criminal stains from files, battered women's syndrome (BWS) theory and the protection decree system. On the other hand, the relevant laws and regulations in China must be improved. An active attitude towards corrections is in itself a special form of prevention. Imprisoned female offenders of violence must be managed and reformed scientifically, for whom awning measures must be strengthened and used together with proper education and guidance. After release, they must be provided with community correction and assistance. On the other hand, social responsibilities are indispensable in controlling violent crimes by women. To enhance the external protection of women's survival environment, the roles of the family, schools and the community as a whole needs to be strengthened. The community as the larger environment must play its due role in creating social supporting system, strengthening social protection network, improving civil coordination organizations, enhancing security measures, establishing social security system and promoting independence of women. In addition, the community must help enhance women's quality, women-oriented moral education and legal education. A reasonable guidance mechanism is also necessary for attenuating women's stress, and this includes sound social security mechanism and benefit distribution scheme.Part V concludes by further elaborating the significance of the study of violent crimes by women, reiterating the viewpoints expressed in the previous parts and pointing out the direction of future research activities in the same area.