Masculinities and crime

It is no secret who commits the great majority of crimes. Arrest, self-report, and victimization data reflect that men and boys perpetrate more conventional crimes—and the more serious of these crimes—than do women and girls. And men have a virtual monopoly on the commission of syndicated, corporate, and political crime (Beirne & Messerschmidt, 2014). Criminologists have consistently advanced gender as the strongest single predictor of criminal involvement; consequently, studying men and boys provides insights into understanding the highly gendered ratio of crime in industrialized societies. Historically, the reasons for this highly gendered ratio of crime have puzzled researchers, officials, and commentators. Although criminal justice agencies focus heavily on detecting, prosecuting, and punishing the working class, poor, and minority male offenders, it is apparent that high levels of recorded and reported offending reflect a real and pervasive social phenomenon of disproportionate male criminality. Since its origins at the end of the 1800s, criminology has experienced difficulty explaining the link between masculinity and crime, and research has often disregarded the link between criminal offending and maleness.