A partner in crime: Assortative matching and bias in the crime market

Gavrilova, Evelina

doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2017.11.025

Cited by 10 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…This role of stereotypes coincides with the findings of Steffensmeier (1980), who notes that males are less likely to choose a female partner because they consider females to be less trustworthy and more governed by passions. Gavrilova (2017) shows that there is a bias against females in criminal group formation. If females do not get initiated into crime in the same way as males, then maybe they participate less.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Uncovering the gender participation gap in crime

Campaniello

Gavrilova

2018

European Economic Review

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There is little research on the gender variation in the crime market. We document a gender gap in criminal activities, based on property crimes, using data from the U.S. National Incident Based Reporting System from 1995 to 2015. We show that there is a gender participation gap, with only 30 percent of the crimes being committed by females. We try to explain the gender participation gap by focusing on incentives to commit crime, such as criminal earnings and probability of arrest. We show that on average females earn 13 percent less than males while they face a 9 percent lower likelihood of arrest. We find that males respond more to changes in illegal earnings, with an elasticity of 0.36, while females are less responsive with an elasticity of 0.23. Both genders respond equally to changes in the probability of arrest, with an elasticity around -0.14. Using a Blinder-Oaxaca type decomposition technique, we find that differences in incentives explain about 8 percent of the gender participation gap, while differences in responsiveness to changes in incentives, especially illegal earnings, explain about 56 percent of the gap. The fact that females behave differently than males has implications for the heterogeneity in response to crime control policies.1 Henceforth, we will refer to these crime rates as participation rates. 2 In the standard economic model of crime both higher earnings and a lower arrest probability can persuade a criminal to commit a crime. Therefore, we will refer to these two variables as criminal incentives. The probability of arrest deters criminals, generating a negative incentive rather than a positive one. In our model, we allow males and females to respond differently to these incentives.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our results are in line with her findings. Gavrilova (2017) investigates the incentives for assortative matching in a criminal pair and finds that females are likely discriminated against when matching with males.…”

Section: Accepted Manuscript 1 Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Uncovering the gender participation gap in crime

Campaniello

Gavrilova

2018

European Economic Review

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“…A 2019 study using US data on property crimes looks at whether women are discriminated against not only in the legal job market but also in the crime market and finds discriminatory bias in male and female partnering to commit a crime. A man decides to partner with a woman to commit a crime only if the woman is more productive (measured in terms of ability to escape law enforcement) than he is [13]. The assumption is that a criminal has an incentive to pair with someone who faces the lowest probability of being arrested because police generally offer a bargain to the criminal who is caught first in order to catch the partner.…”

Section: Gender Discrimination In the Crime Marketmentioning

confidence: 99%

Women in crime

Campaniello¹

2019

izawol

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“…These results indicate that criminal career or number of charges could serve as a proxy for leadership. However, the number of arrests could also be a measure of ability (Gavrilova ).…”

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confidence: 99%

Gender Disparities in Sentencing

Philippe

2020

Economica

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This paper uses the universe of convictions in France between 2000 and 2003 to document the gender gap in sentencing. It reveals three main findings. First, during this period, and after controlling for very precise descriptions of the offences as well as other observable characteristics, women received prison sentences that were 15 days shorter, on average, than those of men who committed comparable offences. This represents a 33% decrease relative to the average sentence length in the sample (45 days in the entire sample). Second, this gender gap is also observed for mixed‐gender pairs of criminals (one man and one woman) who are convicted together, on the same day, by the same person and for the same crime. Finally, this paper presents robust evidence that the gender gap is affected by the gender of the judge, but not that of the prosecutor. Using the evolution of the courts’ composition between 2000 and 2003, the results show that a one‐standard‐deviation increase in the number of women in the court decreases the gender gap by 10%.

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A partner in crime: Assortative matching and bias in the crime market

Cited by 10 publications

References 21 publications

Uncovering the gender participation gap in crime

Uncovering the gender participation gap in crime

Women in crime

Gender Disparities in Sentencing

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