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Gender inequality and economic marginalization contribute to female crime, but little research has explored how these predictors differentially influence female offending at the macrolevel. Building on Steffensmeier and Haynie's work on the relationship between structural disadvantage and urban female crime rates, we explore whether structural indicators differentially influence women's involvement in crimes against those persons in close proximity (intimate partners) versus their participation in the drug trade and robberies. Using the 2000 census, Supplemental Homicide Files, and Uniform Crime Report (UCR) arrest data for a large sample of U.S. cities, we examine the influence of gender inequality and economic marginalization on these offenses while also providing a statistical test to determine whether these indicators differ significantly across offense types. Our findings reveal that some indicators of structural disadvantage vary across types of female offending while other indicators do not. This finding further adds to the important role economic marginalization plays in female offending.
Reckdenwald et al. (Fri,) studied this question.