WOMEN, RACE, AND CRIME *

In: Criminology: the official publication of the American Society of Criminology, Band 28, Heft 4, S. 601-626

Abstract

This paper explores the capacity of alternative theoretical perspectives to explain the self‐reported criminality of black and white young adult females. When criminal involvement is regressed on the theory operation‐alizations separately by race, a key difference emerges: For white women, significant effects are clustered in the social‐psychological theory groups (bonding, attitudes, and maturation), but for the black women the social‐psychological variables have only scattered and inconsistent eflects. Instead, for black women structural indicators emerge as the important predictors of criminal involvement.