This paper examines the nature of female offending patterns in relationship to societal gender equality using cross-national analysis of 27 European countries for the year 2006. Importantly, our analysis uses a conceptually innovative indicator (the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index) to determine relative levels of gender equality. Results show that countries with a narrower gender gap in the Global Gender Gap indexes of political empowerment were likely to have a higher female prosecution rate, and that political empowerment was also significantly associated with female conviction rates as well as rates of property offending. The pattern of results generally supports the liberation thesis. Finally, limitations and suggestions for future study are addressed.

本文通过对 27 个欧洲国家 2006 年的跨国分析，研究了与社会性别平等相关的女性犯罪模式的性质。重要的是，我们的分析使用了一个概念上的创新指标（世界经济论坛的全球性别差距指数）来确定性别平等的相对水平。结果表明，在政治赋权的全球性别差距指数中性别差距较小的国家可能有更高的女性起诉率，而且政治赋权也与女性定罪率和财产犯罪率显着相关。结果的模式通常支持解放论。最后，讨论了未来研究的局限性和建议。