Abstract
Pamela Davies, Gender, Crime and Victimisation, Sage: London, 2010; 121 pp.: ISBN 9781847870278
Despite the ambition and scope of its title, Gender, Crime and Victimisation is a surprisingly slender volume. No book implying coverage of such wide terrain is ever likely to convince all readers that it has succeeded in such a widespread agenda. Pamela Davies, however, provides here a very good overview of how these three concepts intersect, highlighting well some of the key theoretical and methodological developments that have helped to illuminate how criminal offending and victimisation look when viewed through a gendered lens.
The author is well qualified for such a task, given her extensive research and teaching interests in relation to crime, victims and gender, including her own PhD study on women’s involvement in offending for economic gain, material which she draws on as a case study for this current volume. She is currently Programme Director in Criminology at Northumbria University, and will also be known by many ANZJC readers for her joint authorship of such robust volumes of readings as Victims, Crime and Society (Sage, 2007) and Doing Criminological Research (2nd edition, Sage 2011).
The current book would work well as the cornerstone for use in introductory courses, where students have some knowledge of key criminological concepts but little prior exposure to a profoundly gendered analysis. It is very clearly structured, with each chapter beginning with a list of contents and aims, as well as a list of key terms and concepts used. This heralds the way in which the material in each chapter is tightly structured, demarcated by multiple sub-headings and book-cased within an introduction and summary conclusion, followed by suggestions for further reading. In addition, lists of ‘provocative’ questions are included to prompt critical engagement and reflection, thereby helping to make this book salient outside of the context in which it was written. Most of the studies and material referred to are of UK origin, with relatively little of the US literature referred to and little from elsewhere, apart from one or two leading Canadian studies. That said, there is sufficient here to aid students from outside of the UK in acquiring a good overview and encouraging them to undertake relevant searches closer to home. The language used is very accessible and Davies also works to make it reader-friendly through the use of case studies and examples. These are presented quite sparingly, however, and the inclusion of greater detail would have helped to enliven the text, which can be quite prosaic in tone.
I did feel somewhat irritated at times that quite a few typographical areas had crept through the publishing process, and even more so when the author failed to use commas appropriately, resulting in some long sentences needing to be re-read for meaning. Apart from these quibbles, the clarity and structure of the book make it a potentially useful tool for showing students how to write an essay, given the attention given to definitions, sub-headings, good linkages between sections and chapters, and drawing arguments to a conclusion.
The book begins by introducing the ‘gender agenda’ to crime and victimisation and outlining the contents to follow. It then proceeds to paint a broad overview of gender patterns in relation to criminal offending and victimizations, before, in the third chapter, presenting material on how crime stories in the news media depict women and men. This chapter contains useful lists of questions that could be applied in a range of contexts to assist in identifying how gender differences are perceived and depicted, as well as signalling selected key areas for greater investigation such as ‘murderous women’ and ‘sex crimes’. These sections make salient observations overall, but I found the treatment of case examples rather thin and lacking in detail, with few references to assist readers in locating specific media examples depicting the ‘illustrative cases’ cited. Chapter 4 sketches developments in feminist research and methodologies, while the next chapter summarises key feminist and gendered theoretical developments. Both of these chapters raise many issues, and I thought the self-reflexive material presented based on the author’s own experiences of conducting research was one of the most interesting and useful sections here, as well as her caution that criminology as a discipline may be unable to bring together all the diverse strands of knowledge being accumulated regarding gender patterning in criminal offending and victimisation. As she voices it: How do we continue to highlight women’s suffering at the hands of violent men at the same time as foregrounding women’s violence to other women, men and children, at the same time as appreciating the historical-socio-economic position of women with multiple identities? (p. 101)
Next presented, in Chapter 6, is a consideration of ways of appraising issues of risk, fear and vulnerability to victimisation, within which questions are raised regarding how these concepts might be viewed from a masculinities perspective. Chapter 7 is concerned with how gender issues are treated in the context of criminal justice system responses to law-breakers. The chosen focus for this chapter is imprisonment, but this means there is little material addressing court and trial processes, and virtually none on police attitudes and arrest decisions in relation to male and female offenders. The next chapter undertakes a similar overview of how men and women are responded to as victims, although again I was disappointed to see no mention of current debates around restorative justice and alternatives to the adversarial systems of justice. Chapter 9 concludes with a summary of the book’s contents and arguments, while also indicating research challenges for the future.
As the above outline indicates, this book is aimed at providing in one volume material analysing what gender means in the context of men’s and women’s involvement in both criminal offending and/or victimisation. It tries to steer a path through a range of conceptual mine-fields, although in some ways I felt that this book was almost too carefully crafted. It tries hard to be balanced in its treatment of issues, but I often found myself wanting so much more than what was provided. The relatively superficial coverage of complex issues was necessitated by the broad scope of the book, and it does provide a scaffolding from which more in-depth research can be read or undertaken. However, there were some key concepts and recent developments that I felt should have been at least mentioned in such an overview. For instance, while Davies recognises the ways in which criminological research has been slow to recognise male sexual victimisation, the treatment of men’s involvement in domestic violence is more partial. While my view is that the emphasis does need to remain on seeking to eliminate men’s violence against women, nevertheless it seems important that the complexities debated in this area not be avoided. I was disappointed, therefore, to see no mention made of the controversies around gender symmetry arguments, or the complexities of explaining same-sex partner violence. Some even brief mention of these conundrums in the field would have served to illustrate even more clearly the author’s well-expressed points regarding how there are no simple answers or straightforward explanations in the areas of gender, crime and victimisation.
Other absences I struggled with included the lack of recognition given, even in passing, to broader human rights issues and gender dimensions to state crimes, as well as a fuller discussion of youth violence, including fears of growing numbers of ‘girl gangs’, along with a gendered analysis of the role of alcohol. I also felt the omission of discussion regarding gender and online victimisation was a significant oversight in a twenty-first century book of this nature – even just raising initial questions regarding how gender might be enacted and experienced both similarly and differently in a virtual world would have provided a platform for later debate and discussion. More critical engagement with some concepts would also have been useful, and particularly consideration of these in changing historical contexts. At times there seemed to be descriptions and lists of ‘facts’ with comparatively little critical analysis. As an example, observations are made regarding the high levels of mental health problems apparent in women’s prisons without any discussion of whether and how these might be associated with historical stereotypes perceiving women offenders as ‘mad’ rather than ‘bad’.
I also felt there were limitations in terms of references to significant criminological writers. While such important contributors to feminist thinking as Pat Carlen and Sandra Walklate were well cited, others were not even referenced for readers to track down themselves – two immediate examples springing into my mind being Liz Kelly’s extensive work in the sexual violence field and Meda Chesney-Lind’s contributions regarding young women’s delinquency. Admittedly, Davies herself notes that she will no doubt be criticised for various omissions, but I do think greater referencing of more key writers in the field would have made this a fuller and richer introductory resource.
Despite these limitations and omissions, there is nevertheless much to commend this book. It is organised and presented in a very useful way to encourage active rather than passive reading of the material, through the inclusion of many questions that could be applied to local cases and publications. It is also excellent in suggesting that many unanswered, even impossible, questions still exist, as well as highlighting the longevity of some historical concepts and observations – this Davies achieves by demonstrating how some features of long-standing duration (such as gender stereotypes) are still outstanding in terms of their continuing significance. Above all, this book boldly attempts to accomplish what many of us have said was necessary for a long time, a single, accessible volume exploring ways in which gender-awareness challenges traditional approaches to both criminal offending and victimisation. For attempting such an endeavour, and succeeding in so many respects, Pamela Davies does indeed deserve congratulations.
Institute of Criminology/Te Pou Haratutanga, School of Social and Cultural Studies, Victoria University of Wellington