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This paper explores the capacity of alternative theoretical perspectives to explain the self‐reported criminality of black and white young adult females. When criminal involvement is regressed on the theory operation‐alizations separately by race, a key difference emerges: For white women, significant effects are clustered in the social‐psychological theory groups (bonding, attitudes, and maturation), but for the black women the social‐psychological variables have only scattered and inconsistent eflects. Instead, for black women structural indicators emerge as the important predictors of criminal involvement.

This research addresses a key process in power‐control theory, namely, the gender stratification of social control. Using a multidimensional measure of familial control, the authors find evidence that the types of familial control employed are stratified by gender: male children are more typically aligned with paternal support and appearance rules, and female children are more often the objects of maternal support and curfew rules. All four dimensions have significant negative effects on delinquency. Brief attention is given as well to the effects of these variables on contact with formal social control agencies.

Recent changes in the gender patterning of crime are examined using Uniform Crime Report data from 1953 to 1977. A crucial expectation based on opportunity theory -- that of increasingly similar M-F criminal profiles as opportunities for Fs expand -- is not supported by the data. Age-specific analysis suggests the possibility that changed gender identity patterns provide an equally plausible account of historical trends in F criminality. 5 Tables. HA.