Women and crime in the Sudan

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Book chapter

Title:	Women and crime in the Sudan
Author:	Hillawi, Hatim Babiker Abdel Gadir
Book title:	The Sudanese woman
Year:	1987
Pages:	134-148
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Sudan
Subjects:	offenders women
Abstract:	While in Sudan women appear to commit fewer crimes than men, it is impossible to conclude, as Durkheim did, that this is because they have a bigger margin of choice concerning occupations than men and are less subject to the forced division of labour. On the contrary, women in the Sudan probably enjoy less freedom than men in this respect. Nor does the research sample - seventeen women selected at random from Omdurman central prison in 1975 - provide unequivocal support for Marx, who argued that the same economic motivation prompted the crimes of men and women alike. The motivation for female crimes in the Sudan is not purely economic, various other social considerations prompt women to commit crimes. Finally, the author refers to the representation of women in criminal records. The fact that prison records estimate the number of female prisoners in 1975 as four percent of the total prison population raises the question of whether women in Sudan really do commit far fewer crimes than men or whether they are just protected by society from exposure to punishment. Notes, ref.