Feminist Theory, Crime, and Justice* (original) (raw)

Feminist research has expanded beyond its origins in Women's Studies to influence the more traditionally bounded academic disciplines. Criminology has not been immune to these excursions. This paper presents an overview of feminist theory/methods and its applications within select areas of crime and justice studies. Points of intra-theoretical divergence as well as directions for future feminist contributions are noted. * My thanks to Kathleen Daly, Nicole Hahn Rafter, and N. Craig Smith for their insightful comments on a draft of this paper. I was assisted in my revisions by the criticisms of three anonymous reviewers. All of the above are to be commended for their assistance, but none is responsible for the ideas and arguments contained herein. 1. This is not to suggest that biological reductionism is absent in studiedtheories of male criminality. Such explanations of male crime abound (e.g., Wilson and Herrnstein, 1985). However, with the demise of phrenology, social factors replaced biology as key CRIMINOLOGY VOLUME 27 NUMBER 4 1989 605 606 SIMPSON seemed-whether good or bad-could never be like a man. These observations are not new, but they reflect a different voice, a feminist voice, that has been added to the criminological discourse. The purpose of this review essay is to introduce feminist criminology and its intellectual parent, feminism, to the uninitiated reader. It would be presumptuous to suggest that all relevant studies and arguments about gender and crime are included here. Such an extensive review is more appropriate for a book, and depending on the topic, it has likely already been done and done well (e.g., Eaton,

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