Criminal justice and crime problem Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Criminal justice and crime problem - Essay Example A special report of the Bureau of Justice Statistics released in 2000 showed the number of violent women offenders as being 14% of the total, while they formed 22% of all arrestees. (Special report 2000). But this gap is closing and experts estimate that in about ten or 20 years, the statistics on crime for men and women will be equal, largely due to the fact that women are now more involved in what is going on in the world than they were a generation ago. According to behavioral experts, contrary to the popular conception of women as nurturers, they have as great a tendency as men to be violent. The only difference between the two sexes is that they need greater incentives before they take to violence. (Yeoman, 1999). However, present rates for women offenders are still considerably lower than males and many reasons have been put forward to explain this differential rate of offending. While some rest their theories on the gender profiling of society, others point to the fact that wo men resort to crime only when they are forced into it because of poverty, drug addiction or other compelling factors rather than any natural inclination to be violent. Albert Bandura (1973) examined the tendency to violence in both male and female children, in order to study the effect of violent TV programs upon young children. In his experiment, both girls and boys were given dolls and asked to play with them. While boys demonstrated more violent behavior and girls tended to play peacefully with the dolls, Bandura found that the scenario changed when incentive was offered for being violent and destructive to the dolls. In such a case, the girls turned out to be as violent as the boys. This led Bandura to speculate that it was the gender conditioning of girls that led them to gravitate away from violence, since aggression was frowned upon in girls. The females in society were expected to be docile and submissive, nurturing and caring rather than aggressive and

The Himba Ideology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

The Himba Ideology - Essay Example As animals are consecrated to the Himba, the passing of an elder is the only momentous occasion for cattle to be slaughtered. By relocating ancestral fire to the exact place of burial, community life is physically and centered internally on the fire. The Himba consistently migrate back to sacred sites and burials, taking with them ashes of their sacred fires (Salopek). Ritualistically blessing each morning’s cattle milking at the fire through their ancestors, the Himba are spiritually reinforced and sustained each day by their cattle, ancestors, and Creator (Crandall 72). The Himba are outstanding people to look at. The women are topless and clad in mini-skirts made of goat skins decorated with shells and jewelry made of iron and copper. The men wear goatskin loin cloths. Both men and women smear their skin with a mixture of rancid butter, ash, and ochre to guard them against the harsh desert climate. The paste (Otjize) is often mixed with the aromatic resin of the Omuzumba shrub, a little like adding cologne to a suntan lotion. As well as protection from the sun, the deep red color is a highly needed look in the Himba culture. It is certainly eye-catching and very beautiful. The Himba use the same paste (Otjize) on their hair which is long and plaited into complex designs. You can tell the marital status of a Himba lady by the way she puts her hair. The men also change their hairstyle to denote their social position. A married man, for example, wears his hair in a turban. The leather used is not treated, so it a pretty smelly.