Radical & Feminist Criminology

The 1960s were a time of social and political change, transformations that inevitably made their way into the study of crime and criminality. Radical Criminology, a theoretical model born in that decade, flourishes during the 1970s. Adherents of this school of thought are conflict theorists who import Marxist ideas into their analyses. They consider crime a product of the unequal distribution of resources characteristic of capitalism. Defining, prosecuting, and punishing crime serves to reinforce the economic and social status quo and allows the dominant class to retain its power. According to this approach, strategies to combat crime include the redistribution of power, money, and status within the society. Among the scholars associated with these ideas are William Chambliss and Richard Quinney.

In 1975, Freda Adler's Sisters in Crime and Rita James Simon's Women and Crime are published. Finally, a theory of criminality that includes women is beginning to be discussed. Men and women participate in different crimes and at far different rates. Yet traditionally, theories about male criminals have been superimposed onto women offenders without exploring how poorly they fit the circumstances. Often, behavior that challenges women's role has been criminalized, but few theorists have explored this troubling phenomenon. Biology is the most frequently cited cause of female conduct considered outside the law.

Adler and Simon become the founding mothers of Feminist Criminology, a theoretical school incorporating gender and social constructs into discussions of crime and criminality. The self-referential old-boy network is beginning to give way.