SISTERS IN CRIME: The Rise of the New Female Criminal

She will probably be very similar to the old male criminals we know and hate. As women assume roles formerly reserved for men in the social hierarchy, so too do they in the criminal hierarchy; ""female"" crimes of prostitution and shoplifting are increasingly giving way to bank robbing, mugging, grand larceny, armed robbery. Likewise formerly docile prison behavior is changing to strikes and riots. The author's point is not to condemn, but to show that the type and nature of crime (for both men and women) is largely determined by the perpetrator's place in society--business executives don't rob gas stations, they embezzle and price-fix; black women--so often heads of their families--have crime patterns far more similar to that of men than white women. Adler also shows damning evidence of sexual discrimination in sentencing (judges usually give women longer sentences than men for the same crime; state statutes often force them to do so) and prison systems (men have far more education and job-training facilities than women). The author also examines in detail laws governing abortion and particularly prostitution--where the women is arrested and the man nearly always goes morally and legally scot-free. This is a lively and absorbing study by a female criminologist who is also Associate Professor of Law and Crime at Rutgers and consultant to the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice section of the UN.