Gendered Experiences in Developmental Pathways to Crime: Editorial Introduction (Editorial)

Abstract

The study of developmental pathways to crime and criminal behaviour across the life-course does not enjoy a long history in the field of criminology. It is only recently, over the past few decades, that researchers have engaged and advanced our thinking and understanding of more dynamic, developmental theoretical and empirical models of offending behaviour over time and across the life-course (for example, [3, 5, 6, 8]). However, exploring gender and crime, and the female offender more particularly, dates to an earlier period of criminology [4]. Despite the fact that early and more modern attempts to fully capture and understand gender and offending were largely inadequate for several reasons including by being under-theorised, under-conceptualised and under-examined, opportunities existed for researchers to engage with these issues. The fact they chose not to in large number illustrates too well that the focus and indeed early priorities of nineteenth and twentieth century criminologists were on the crime problems generated by males (and largely studied by males). Indeed, it is well documented that criminological theory and the models developed to predict, explain and understand processes of offending have been predominantly about male patterned behaviour. Approaches to applying and explaining processes for females, when considered, were often not about capturing unique differences or processes, but rather identifying similar processes, with less exposure to common risks regardless of gender [1].