Last Updated on September 18, 2026 by Karl Thompson
The Chivalry Thesis states that women are let off relatively lightly by predominately male police and judges. It is one explanation for why official statistics on gender and crime report so few female crimes compared to male crimes. It could also explain why there are so few female prisoners than male prisoners.
The key idea of the Chivalry Thesis is male police are less likely to arrest and prosecute female criminals compared to male criminals, even if they are caught committing similar crimes. Similarly, male judges will give female prisoners more lenient sentences compared to males for the same offences. The idea is sometimes called the chivalry hypothesis.
Most sociological accounts say that the first person to coin the term ‘Chivalry Thesis’ was Otto Pollak, in 1950.
Otto Pollak: The ‘masked’ female offender
Writing in 1950, in The Criminality of Women, Otto Pollak argued official statistics on gender and crime were misleading. He claimed statistics underestimated the extent of female criminality.
Pollak analyzed statistics from several countries and claimed to have identified certain crimes that are usually committed by women but which tend to go unreported.
- nearly all offences of shoplifting and criminal abortions were carried out by women. Both of these often went unreported to authorities.
- Female domestic servants were in a position to commit theft from properties, which often went unnoticed.
- In the case of prostitution Pollak saw the female prostitutes as committing criminal acts, but not the male clients.
- Women’s domestic roles gave them opportunities to get away with poisoning their husbands and abusing their children.
Pollak argued the police, magistrates and other law enforcement officials tended to be men. Brought up to be chivalrous, they were usually lenient with female offenders so fewer women appeared in the statistics.
However, according to Pollak, the chivalry thesis only explained a small part of the low female offending rate in the official statistics. A more significant factor was that women were very good at hiding their crimes. This Pollak attributed to their biology. Women were good at deceiving men because they were used to hiding the pain and discomfort they experienced when menstruating. (For more on this type of explanation, see biological theories of female crime.)
Criticisms of Pollak
Heidensohn (1985) criticises Pollak’s work for being based on unfounded, stereotypical assumptions about women.
Stephen Jones (2009) pointed out that Pollak provided a lack of evidence to back up his points. He had no actual evidence that female domestic servants committed crimes against their employers, for example.
Despite the obvious sexism in Pollak’s theory, he is important as he was the first person to raise the possibility of ‘chivalry’ being a factor in explaining gender differences in the official crime statistics. The Chivalry Thesis has been taken a little more seriously by criminologists!
Evidence supporting the Chivalry Thesis
Historical self report studies have shown a difference in the reported rates of offending by males and females. These differences are NOT as great as the imprisonment statistics.
For example the 2006 Offending, Crime and Justice survey 12% of males admitted to committing more serious offences compared to 8% of females.
The Ministry of Justice’s Women and the Criminal Justice System 2023 (published January 2025) suggests that women are still treated more leniently by the courts than men. In 2023 women were 28% less likely than men to be sentenced to immediate custody for indictable offences. Women sent to prison also received much shorter sentences: an average of 12.2 months, compared to 21.8 months for men.
When offence type is controlled for women receive 4.5 years less than men.
However this does not factor in the precise details of the offence, plea or previous convictions. The Ministry of Justice itself warns that its figures can’t show whether men and women are treated differently for the same offence.
Evidence against the Chivalry Thesis
The latest trends from Women in the Criminal Justice System shows that women are receiving harsher punishments compared to previous years. Thus catching up with men.
This could be linked to the fact that there are proportionally more female police and judges today than ever before. In 2023, 35% of police officers were women, and in 2024 women made up 43% of all judges.
Studies which take the seriousness of the offence and previous convictions into account find little evidence of leniency:
- David Farrington and Allison Morris (1983) studied sentencing in a magistrates’ court. Women appeared to receive more lenient sentences, but the difference disappeared once the seriousness of the offence and the offender’s previous record were taken into account.
- Steven Box (1981) reviewed self-report studies and concluded that women who commit serious offences are not treated more favourably than men.
Feminist criminologists argue that far from being chivalrous towards women the criminal justice system is in some ways biased against women.
- Hilary Allen (1987) found that courts were more likely to explain women’s serious offences in psychiatric terms, treating them as ‘mad’ rather than ‘bad’.
- Frances Heidensohn argues women face ‘double deviance’: they are judged both for breaking the law and for breaking the norms of femininity, so women who don’t fit the stereotype of the respectable wife and mother can be punished more harshly.
- In rape trials, feminists such as Sandra Walklate argue it is often the female victim whose sexual history and behaviour is put on trial. See feminist perspectives on crime for more.
Evaluation: is the criminal justice system chivalrous?
The evidence is mixed. The official statistics show women are much less likely to be sent to prison and get shorter sentences, but women also commit fewer and less serious offences. Once those differences are taken into account, the case for widespread chivalry is weak. Some women may benefit from lenient treatment, while women who break gender norms may be treated more harshly.
Signposting
This material is mainly relevant to the Crime and Deviance module, usually taught as part of second year A-Level sociology.
Other explanations of gender differences in offending include sex-role theory, biological theories, Adler’s liberation thesis and Messerschmidt’s masculinities and crime.