Women Offenders and Types of Crimes (Essay Sample)

Women Offenders and Types of Crimes
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Introduction
Crimes are acts conducted by individuals, which are against the law or against the right of an individual as protected by the constitutions. Perpetrators of crime perform the lawless acts to satisfy their ill desires and ego. With increase in population, there is always an increase in criminal activities, with different crimes being more likely to be committed by different genders. This paper is an analysis of two types of crimes that are more likely to be committed by women than by men. The paper shall also analyze the reasons why women offenders may be treated differently than the men offenders in the criminal justice system, at the law enforcement court, and at correctional level. 
Crimes committed by women
In the recent years, crime rates in the USA have been on the decline as compared to other years. There are crimes more likely to be committed by women than men. In the past, women have accounted for 6% of the total prison population with the total count being 4,299 by 2002. Based on the (FBI -Arrests. 2010), averages, women account for 14% of violent offenders, which translates to 2.1 million offenders. Most female offenders are mothers without work and may lack qualifications or skills to perform in specific jobs. However, most women commit simple crimes, as 3 out of 4 female offenders have committed simple assault and 28% of violent female offenders are juvenile.
Most women offenders are most likely to be associated with minor offences that pose little risk to the society. Among the crimes that women are associated with are theft from shops. Women without jobs and skills to be employed are more prone to committing this crime, as they still desire things from the shops. These acts of theft include shop lifting, fraud, which includes the presentation of bad checks, credit card theft, among others. In these crimes, women will always have male partners, who might be acting behind the scenes.
Women are most likely to be arrested for the offence of handling stolen property, as according to the 2002 statistics, 57% of known female offenders were indicted due to thefts and handling of stolen property. Most women who commit crime do not do it alone and might have a male member, who assists in the planning and women are involved in handling.
Women treatment in the justice and correction system
Women have received what seems as fair treatment in the correction facilities, due to the fact that most of their crimes are seen to pose less threat to the society. According to Greenfeld & Snell (1999), by the year 1998, there were 951,900 women in the USA under the care of the department of correction. Based on the level of threat that the crime committed posed to the society, 85% of the female offenders were being supervised by the department in the community, while 15% were locked up in prisons. The form of treatment received by women is highly attributed to the fact that mos...