Sex differences in crime

Sex differences in crime are differences between men and women as the perpetrators and/or victims of crime. Such studies may belong to fields such as criminology (the scientific study of criminal behavior) or sociobiology (which attempts to demonstrate a causal relationship between biological factors, in this case sex, and human behaviors), etc. Despite the difficulty of interpreting them, crime statistics may provide a way to investigate such a relationship from a gender differences perspective. An observable difference in crime rates between men and women might be due to social and cultural factors, crimes going unreported, or to biological factors (as sociobiological theories claim). Furthermore, the nature of the crime itself must be considered.

Many professionals have offered explanations for this sex difference in crimes. Some differing explanations include men's evolutionary tendency toward risk and violent behavior, sex differences in activity, social support, and gender inequality. Rowe, Vazsonyi, and Flannery (1995) demonstrated that ratios of self reported delinquent acts are higher for men than women across many different actions thus supporting the fact that men commit more criminal acts than women. Burton, et al. (1998) found that low levels of self control are associated with criminal activity.