Female Crime

Book excerpt: Female Crime, first published in 1987, surveys the major schools of criminology in order to explore the images of the female offender which underpin many contemporary crime theories. In reveals the ways in which male-centred norms dominated much analysis, and how crude stereotypes of women were a common attribute to the armoury of criminological research. Although feminists and other researchers are directing increasing attention to criminology, this was one of the first attempts to deploy feminist analyses developed within other disciplines to examine critically the range of modern criminological theories on women. Its findings demonstrate the importance of a program to create a new feminist criminology which recognises the female offender as a reasoning, purposeful subject. This title will be of interest to students of criminology.