Why Women Are More Punitive Toward Sex Offenders: A Test of Three Hypotheses

• In Event: Gender in a Criminological Context: Understanding Gender Differences in Behaviors, Attitudes, and Identity

Abstract

Research consistently finds that women are more punitive toward sex offenders than are men, despite tending to be less punitive in other contexts. This study presents and tests three hypotheses that may explain women’s greater punitiveness toward sex offenders. First, women’s victimization experiences, which disproportionately involve sex offenses, may increase punitiveness toward sex offenders. Second, women’s fear of crime may produce greater punitiveness toward sex offenders because all offenses carry the “shadow of sexual assault.” Third, women’s greater tendency to view issues related to purity and bodily integrity as moral (i.e., to endorse the moral foundation “purity”; see Graham et al., 2011), may elicit greater punitiveness toward crimes that involve these elements. Data from a national, online survey (N=1,025) provide strong support for the fear of crime hypothesis, as well as mixed support for the “purity” foundation hypothesis.

Author

• Jasmine Silver, University at Albany, SUNY