Female Violence and Gender Gap Trends in Taiwan: Offender-Behavioral Changes or Net-Widening Enforcement Explanations?

Abstract

Two long-standing explanations of converging violence gender gap trends in the United States are net-widening enforcement and offender-behavioral changes. We examine these explanations in an Asian context, democratic Taiwan. We use sex-specific arrests, conviction, and imprisonment statistics for violent offenses, 1989 to 2012, to identify whether Taiwanese gender gaps are converging across the criminal justice system. This study did not identify a female violent crime “wave” but mainly stability, failing to support the offender-behavioral change hypothesis. There is limited evidence of net-widening enforcement of felony assault and domestic violence, where disparate impacts on female arrest trends are identified solely for domestic violence.