The Invisible Woman. Joanne Belknap
aggressively controlled by social service and law enforcement professionals. She pointed out that in contrast to Hagan’s theory, both the girls and the boys in her study reported that the increased familial control of girls is due to the effort to monitor the girls’ (and not the boys’) sexual activities. She concluded that, for the high-risk youths in her study, the parental control cited by Hagan “is a very limited component of the social control that gender encompasses” (Bottcher, 1995, p. 53). Similarly, a longitudinal study of 1,000 Minnesota youths collected data not only on parents’ employment but also on the youths’ employment under the assumption that boys who are given more freedom to work outside the home are also provided more access to offending (Uggen, 2000). This study reported that fathers’ authority positions in the workplace increased the likelihood of arrests for sons but decreased it for daughters, whereas mothers’ workplace authority increased the arrest likelihood for daughters but decreased it for sons. Additionally, regarding the youths’ own employment in the workforce, having more workplace power and control increased boys’ but decreased girls’ likelihood of arrest (Uggen, 2000).
D. Eitle, Eitle, and Niedrist were the first to apply PCT to Indigenous youths, noting its relevance given that Indigenous families have historically been more egalitarian than other racial groups in the United States, particularly prior to colonization (D. Eitle et al., 2014; T. M. Eitle & Eitle, 2015, p. 689). Using National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health data, controlling for youths in two-parent families, they found considerable support for PCT among Indigenous youths (D. Eitle et al., 2014), more so than for white youths (T. M. Eitle & Eitle, 2015). Eitle et al. (2014) applied PCT to Indigenous youths for self-reported general, property, and violent delinquency. Findings included that Indigenous girls reported lower mother and father relational controls than Indigenous boys, for which PCT would suggest that their offending should be similar. However, only violent delinquent acts were higher for boys. In boy-only multivariate models, support was found for PCT only for property crimes, and it was far more limited even then. Girl-only models found PCT support: Girls’ affective bond to fathers and being in patriarchal families reduced their likelihood of committing general, property, and violent delinquent behaviors. Having a grandparent living in the home decreased girls’ (but not boys’) proclivity for violent delinquency, which the authors claim is consistent with PCT regarding more (grand)parental control. Father control deterred both boys’ and girls’ property offending (and living in poverty only impacted boys’ property offending). Finally, Eitle et al.’s (2014) comparison with similarly situated white youths found whether a family was patriarchal or egalitarian was never related to girls’ or boys’ general, violent, or property offending; mother relational bonds was a robust predictor for girls’ and boys’ offending, and a grandparent residing in the home had no impact on any white youths’ self-reported general, property, or violent offending.
T. M. Eitle and Eitle (2015) applied PCT to Indigenous youths (with some comparisons to white youths) for substance use. First, among Indigenous youths, gender was a greater predictor of substance use in patriarchal than in egalitarian families (there was little gender gap in substance use in egalitarian families). Second, Indigenous girls raised in egalitarian families reported more alcohol problems than boys in such homes. Third, parental controls suppress (but do not erase) the gender–substance use association. Fourth, and inconsistent with PCT, among these Indigenous youths, fathers’ (and not mothers’) relational control predicted girls’ (and not boys’) substance use—demonstrating the important roles fathers can play in their daughters’ as well as sons’ desistance from crime. Finally, T. M. Eitle and Eitle found support for PCT for alcohol consumption, marijuana consumption, and alcohol problems, for Indigenous but not white youths, suggesting PCT is better suited to explaining the delinquent behavior of Indigenous compared with white youths, at least for substance use.
Notably, some politicians, popular media, and researchers have blamed women’s work outside the home as a cause of delinquency. (Also recall K. J. Cook’s [2016] criticism of GTC, linking “ineffective child-rearing” with mothers, particularly poor and/or single mothers [p. 338].) However, careful research in this area finds no link between mothers’ employment and their children’s delinquency (Broidy, 1995; De Coster, 2012; Vander Ven, 2003). De Coster’s (2012) analysis of U.S. data, comparing mothers who work outside the home with stay-at-home mothers, found huge variation within each group regarding their parenting behaviors. Mothers’ employment status was found related to their children’s delinquency when they were incongruent with their ideologies: Mothers who think it is inappropriate for mothers to work, but do work, and mothers who think it is appropriate for mothers to work but do not, are more likely to have delinquent children than mothers whose work status is congruent with their beliefs about whether it is “appropriate” for women to work (De Coster, 2012). A study using an extensive longitudinal data set of youths found the only instances where women’s work could be linked in any fashion to their children’s delinquency was when their work was coercive, they relied on welfare, and the family income was low, suggesting that “more children will be better off as women gain increased access to educational advancement, job training, and opportunities for stable, well-paying employment” (Vander Ven, 2003, p. 133).
Schulze and Bryan’s (2017) intersectional and comprehensive PCT study of both status offenses and total offenses, appropriately and uniquely includes schools as a separate source of power and control in youths’ lives. Their predominantly African American and poor sample was “composed entirely of juvenile offenders … arguably the most vulnerable among the juvenile population who are also subjected to the most systemic control” (p. 73). Whether the young adult was in a single-mother-parent, single-father-parent, or two-parent family was unrelated to being charged with a status offense or “total offenses,” but young adults with “other” guardianship (e.g., foster home, residential care) or homelessness were more at risk of having status offenses. The only exception was when single-parent-mother was analyzed by race: In direct contrast to PCT, they found “single-mother-headed household” was a protective factor for girls against being charged with status (but not total) offenses. Family “dysfunction” and high scores on psychological symptoms affected girls and boys the same, increasing their likelihood of both status and overall offenses. Parent/guardian criminality did not impact children’s status or total offenses, while sibling criminality impacted both girls’ and boys’ total offending. Parent employment (at least one working parent) reduced youths’ likelihood of total offenses. Schulze and Bryan (2017) concluded that PCT research must address “systemic processes directly” and “be cognizant of the fact that the modern family structure is dynamic,” lessening “its predictive value to delinquency, especially if examined in isolation from other, known correlates that also operate as patriarchal controls” (p. 92).
Finally, Hagan and his colleagues (2004) reported the support for PCT is so strong that “male subcultural delinquents” may be “the social dinosaurs of a passing, more patriarchal era” (p. 659). Yet the reviewed research testing PCT is not very convincing, and the accounts of gender comparisons reported in Chapter 4 do not indicate that male subcultural delinquents are becoming social dinosaurs.
Women’s Liberation/Emancipation Hypothesis (WLEH)
We have seen that traditionally, criminological theory showed only a passing interest in explaining the offending and the system’s criminal processing of women and girls. All this changed in 1975, however, with the publication of Adler’s (1975) Sisters in Crime and R. J. Simon’s (1975) Women and Crime. These books, particularly Adler’s, received a great deal of attention regarding their hypothesis that the women’s liberation movement increases the female crime rate. Although similar overall, Adler and Simon differed concerning the types of crime the women’s movement was expected to impact. Adler proposed that the violent crime rate would increase because of women’s liberation. In contrast, Simon proposed that only the property crime rate would increase with women’s liberation. Simon suggested further that women’s violent crime would decrease because women’s frustrations with life would diminish as they gained access to new work and educational opportunities. Also called the emancipation hypothesis, this approach suggests that the feminist movement, although working toward equality for women, increased the female