Crime or crime prevention - Essay Example

othesis,” this detail is taken for granted by most criminologists and sociologists in that gender, more often than not, does not factor into the exploration of the causes of crime. “It is taken for granted that males are more criminogenic, theories of crime use this as an underlying assumption and rarely attempt to explain the phenomenon” (Krienert, 2003). Because of this, there is a loophole in many studies on crime and crime prevention, especially male-to-male criminal acts, as there is no established theory that significantly links masculinity—and even gender in general—to the commission of crime and violence.

Hence, the author, through a quantitative assessment of Messerschmidt’s Hypothesis, aims to fill in this gap that will create a substantial correlation between masculinity and violent crime through the use of quantitative data. This will provide reliable and quantifiable data for future qualitative research that will be done on gender and its interaction with violent criminal acts. In this way, “the need for better measures of both masculinity and appropriate outlets for masculine expression” will be given due attention and recognition when it comes to the study of crime and crime prevention (Krienert, 2003).

Based on Messerschmidt’s Hypothesis that criminal activity becomes something that men resort to as a resource when they do not have the power they think they need to have in order to complete their masculinity, Krienert (2003) designed a quantitative study that aims to check the validity of three hypotheses: (1) Events are more likely to be violent when they contain men who score low (very masculine) on the MMPI-2 MF scale; (2) Events are more likely to be violent when they contain individuals who score low on the appropriate outlets of masculinity scale; and (3) The effects of masculinity on violence will depend on the level of appropriate outlets of masculinity.

If the level of appropriate outlets is low, the effect of