ABSTRACT
Despite the fact that, virtually since the first empirical studies of crime, it was clear that one of the major factors in crime was sex, it is only in recent years that criminologists have begun to take the data seriously and treat sex or gender as central theoretical issues in accounting for crime. Put simply, across many different countries and in many research studies, official crime, especially violent crime, involves mostly male offenders. In the case of homicide, for example, typically males make up between 85 and 95 percent of the known offenders (Wallace, 1986; Polk, 1994). In fact, closer examination will reveal that in over half the cases of homicide, males are involved as both offender and victim. While early studies of homicide might note such distributions, they would give little attention to the obviously important question of why it is that these crimes are committed by males, and the equally important theoretical issue of why females are much less likely to be involved.
