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Global-level data suggests that the number of women and girls in prison is growing and at a faster rate than the male prison population is. In order to meaningfully address this shift in female deviance and criminalization, more attention should be given on the specific ways that women and girls are labeled “deviants” and subsequently criminalized. Women and girls have been criminalized, imprisoned, and harshly punished for “moral” offenses such as adultery or premarital sex or for violations of dress codes or even for being a member of the LGBTQ community. Women and girls have also been reportedly been imprisoned for running away from their homes (often from abusive situations), for being raped, and even for being forced into prostitution. Furthermore, victims of domestic violence or sex trafficking and sex workers have been administratively detained or simply detained for seeking asylum, having committed no crime. The feminist criminological perspective has widened an understanding of all forms of female deviance. This perspective stresses the importance of contextual analysis and of incorporating unique experiences of women and girls at the intersection of not only gender, race, class, and ethnicity but also nationality, religion, sexual orientation, political affiliation, and immigration or migration status, and against the backdrop of national as well as international conflict. Now the challenge is develop effective solutions both to address female victimization and to end the silencing of women and girls through criminalization on a global level. Effective implementation of a gender-mainstreaming strategy, adopted in United Nations policies such as “the Bangkok Rules,” is one of the proposed solutions.

Although there exists a growing body of research on female delinquents, few studies have investigated extensively the life courses of young women with histories of commercial sexual exploitation (CSE). Adding to the pathways perspective to offending literature, this article examines the narratives of young women with histories of CSE, emphasizes what they interpret as turning points, and illustrates their criminal trajectories as a “gauntlet.” This article presents a case study of six female offenders with histories of commercial sexual exploitation. Interviewees identified disrupted relationships with their mothers, early experiences of sexual abuse, and justice involvement as turning points toward their “gauntlet” of CSE and criminality. In addition, intergenerational normalization of drug abuse and violence in their homes, economic and racial marginalization, and absence of nurturing relationships led to interviewees’ interpretations of their lives as limited in agency, freedom, and change and filled with criticism, constriction, and punishment. Such interpretations preceded their return to offending behaviors. The pathways perspective to understanding sexually exploited female offenders is an important contribution in the field of feminist criminology. When combined with understanding young women’s turning points toward delinquency and CSE and their perceived effect of system involvement, the pathways perspective underscores the constraint and challenges these young women express as they navigate their communities, approach relationships, and return to criminality.

This article briefly explores the disconnect between the global discourse on girls’ issues, which really focuses on girls’ rights, and most particularly their right to be free from victimization, and the American focus on girls, which is far more concerned with bad or violent girls. Specifically, the article reviews the increase in girls’ arrests in the United States for offenses like simple assault and the concomitant increase in girls’ share of juvenile court populations. Arguing that the maltreatment of girls is at the heart of such a shift, the article reviews current data on the prominence of cross-over or dual status youth (youth who have experienced both victimization and criminalization) in the female court population. Presenting evidence that the failure to protect American girls from harm is related to these patterns, the article concludes with a gender-responsive program that focuses on reducing harm to girls so as to prevent their future delinquency.

This research evaluates the efficacy of a gender-specific, problem-solving court for girl offenders. Official statistics, interview data, and focus group data are utilized to determine whether the court is achieving its stated goals of reducing recidivism, risky behaviors, and confinement for the girls who attend this court program. The present research demonstrates that the program does seem to be effective in terms of reducing both recidivism and risky behavior as well as increasing the development of prosocial and healthy relationships. The article concludes with some lessons learned from the implementation of this court program as well as ideas for future research.

This article explores social and legal predictors of justice involvement for female juvenile offenders. Specifically, it examines the significance of trauma and marginalization in determinants of girls' detention and commitment as well as the formal decisions made about them. Using a mixed method approach of case file analysis and interview data, the authors explain the following overall findings: 1) detention is widely used on all offenders, most commonly justified in the conventional language of “protection” when applied to girls; 2) girls are more often committed to correctional facilities because of the effects (school failure and crystal methamphetamine use) of the sexual violence they experienced, and rarely for the violence they caused; and 3) for female juvenile offenders, juvenile justice decision makers consider histories of trauma and lack of resources as equally as important as offense histories when recommending them for commitment. This article concludes with implications for girl offenders and juvenile justice policy.

Girls suspected or convicted of assaults make up an increasing proportion of juvenile arrests and court caseloads. There is indication that changes in domestic violence arrest policies, school handling of student rules infractions, and practices of charging youth for assaults rather than status offenses account for these trends. To determine whether girls were treated more harshly for assaults after these policies changed, the present study compared the probabilities of conviction and institutionalization, net of the effect of self-reported attacks on persons, for 1980 and 2000. Data were from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth 1979 and 1997 cohorts. Girls experienced a unique increase in the probabilities of justice system involvement that was replicated only for Black males. The increase was magnified for Black girls. Additional research is needed to better connect specific policies to drawing selected subgroups more deeply into the justice system and on the consequences for affected youth.

This article begins with a consideration of the interconnected troubles and needs that research has documented for girls who become enmeshed in the juvenile justice system. Special attention is given to findings from research that gives girls in the system some ‘voice’ in explaining what services and programs they need and want. After offering some explanation of the gap in programs and services for girls, the article notes the failure of evaluation results to shed light on effective program models, and thus the importance of available documentation on programs as a guide for developing effective, gender responsive programs for girls. Available documentation is analysed, with particular attention to the fit of girls' assessed and expressed needs to the descriptive material on programs.

This article examines the prevalence of female juvenile delinquency and reviews the literature from a sociological and practice perspective. Specifically, we focus attention on girls' aggression and violence and argue that close analysis of the data indicates that changes in arrests of girls for certain violent offenses reflect complex changes in the policing of girls' aggression (including the arrest of girls for minor forms of family violence) rather than actual changes in girls' behavior. Following this review, we consider more traditional themes in girls' delinquency: status offenses, larcency theft and drug use, that still account for the bulk of girls' arrests. Finally, we briefly review trends in the treatment of girls by the juvenile justice system, and we discuss the emerging literature on promising interventions with girls.

Public discussion regarding youth violence is at an all-time high, and this is particularly true of girls' violence. Girls have long been forgotten when juvenile crime is discussed. However, recent statistics showing dramatic increases in the arrests of girls, particularly for traditionally male-dominated offenses (such as assault and robbery), have prompted some to report that girls are getting more violent. Using data from reported juvenile robbery incidents for the City and County of Honolulu during two specific time periods, this research addresses the question, are girls getting more violent? The data indicate that despite claims that youth have become increasingly violent, no major shift in the pattern of juvenile robbery occurred over the two time periods. Instead, it appears that less serious offenses, particularly those committed by girls, are being swept up into the criminal justice system.

This study presents a multiyear empirical examination of gender bias in the handling of juvenile court cases in Hawaii. Based on prior qualitative and quantitative data, it is hypothesized that once female juvenile offenders are found delinquent, they will be sanctioned more severely than male offenders by the juvenile court, holding other factors constant. Results from a series of analyses indicate significant differences between male and female juvenile justice outcomes, particularly for youth of color. Female offenders are more likely than male offenders to be handled informally at the early stages of the system, but the court's benevolence declines as girls move into the disposition stage. The implications of these findings for resolving inconsistencies in prior research are discussed. Also considered are policy implications with regard to congressional initiatives to de-emphasize the deinstitutionalization of status offenses and reduce concerns about minority overrepresentation in the juvenile justice system.

This study examined the relationship between the gender of clients and practitioners and practitioners' fears in work with high-risk youth. Two hundred forty eight youth-serving practitioners were surveyed about the frequency of fears about their work. Scores based on these fears were correlated with the percentage of male clients on practitioners' caseloads. Male practitioners were found to have fears related to liability in their work with female youth clients and fears related to physical harm in their work with male youth clients. Female practitioners were found to have fears of damage to their professional reputation from their work with male youth clients.

Despite the fact that girls account for one of four arrests of juveniles, discussions of delinquency and juvenile justice generally ignore young women and their problems. A review of the nature of female delinquency as well as the juvenile justice system's long-documented bias against girls suggests that careful consideration of girls' issues would shed considerable light on the shortcomings of the juvenile justice system as a whole. Specifically, the unique problems of girls, like sexual abuse, were long ignored by a system that purported to seek "the best interests of the child." Instead, girls' survival strategies, like running away from home, were criminalized. Contemporary congressional efforts to reform juvenile justice, focused almost exclusively on boys' violence, are likely to produce changes that will result in the compounding of girls' problems due to contact with a system that ignores their unique situations.

This study explores the meaning of police estimates of gang membership, by reviewing the characteristics of youth labeled as gang members in one western state, Hawaii, during 1991. Arrest patterns of these youth do not support the notion that they constitute a seriously violent subset of criminals. Indeed, nearly a third had not been arrested in the previous three years; notable too is the absence of a large number of weapon or drug arrests. These findings are amplified by data from a comparison of youth who were not labeled as gang members; these indicate that youth (in the City and County of Honolulu) who are delinquent differ little from those youth suspected of gang membership in terms of the frequency or severity of their offenses. Finally, the groups most commonly labeled by police as gang members are Filipino and Samoan males, but self-report data on gang membership indicate a somewhat different ethnic composition. The policy implications of these findings are also discussed.

Culturally derived standards of attractiveness are used in determining the treatment women receive in various aspects of their lives, including the criminal justice system. Examination of the files from the California Youth Authority from the 1960s indicated that male intake personnel often commented on the physical attributes of the female wards. This was most likely to occur when the ward had at least one charge of “immorality” on her record. When more recent files were examined, notations on the physical attractiveness were least likely to occur when the wards had been committed to the institution for serious violations.

Studies of delinquent careers have often tracked only male offenders, and have almost always failed to explore the interaction of race and gender in delinquency. This study tracks a cohort of youth whose first referral to juvenile court was in 1980, and explores the role played by both race and gender in official delinquent careers. Findings reveal that both race and gender play a significant role in official delinquency. Looking first at female delinquency, this research finds that white and nonwhite females do not differ significantly in the types of offenses they commit. Moreover, if girls are “chronic” delinquents, their offenses are most often trivial rather than serious. With males, racial differences emerge in both seriousness and chronic nature of delinquency. Nonwhite males in this cohort are more likely to be referred for personal offenses and less likely to be referred for public order and victimless offenses. Nonwhite males are also significantly more likely to become recidivists, and to have more seriously delinquent careers. This article discusses the implications of these findings, particularly with reference to the “convergence theory” of delinquency, which suggests that race plays a stronger role than gender in female delinquency. Finally, the article considers the policy implications of the current range of definitions of “chronic” delinquency.

The power control theory of delinquency is one of the few that has attempted to account for both gender and class in delinquency causation. This paper assesses critically the model's conceptual framework and reformulates it on the basis of these concerns as well as the results of prior research. We then test the revised model using data from the National Survey of Children, for which the members of a nationally representative sample of households were interviewed in 1981. Bivariate analysis showed that, contrary to power control theory, gender differences in delinquency appeared in families regardless of their structure (patriarchal or egalitarian). Moreover, a path analysis revealed that the quality of the relationship with the mother was important in explaining low levels of delinquency, particularly in boys. The quality of a youth's relationships with parents, particularly the experience of negative sanctions from the father, was found to explain delinquency for both sexes. Finally, family's social cla...

This article explores the role that the sex–gender system plays in shaping both the violence and victimization of girls. Taking first the issue of girls' violence, the article argues that steep increases in girls' arrests are not the product of girls becoming more like boys. Instead, forms of girls' minor violence that were once ignored are now being criminalized. Shifting gears, the article explores how “gender-neutral” relabeling of girls' victimization in schools, a site of much violence against girls, is extremely problematic. Renaming “sexual harassment” as “bullying” tends to psychopathologize gender violence while simultaneously stripping girl victims of powerful legal rights and remedies. To illustrate this latter point, a “model” antibullying program, The Bullying Prevention Program, is reviewed. Offering a one-size-fits-all view of bullying, it assumes all bullying can be approached psychologically or relationally, thereby minimizing the structural underpinnings of such behavior.

Acknowledgments Chapter 1. Introduction Chapter 2. Girls' Troubles and "Female Delinquency Trends in Girls' Arrests Boys' Theories and Girls' Lives Criminalizing Girls' Survival: Abuse, Victimization, and Girls' Official Delinquency Delinquency Theory and Gender: Beyond Status Offenses Chapter 3. Girls, Gangs, and Violence: Rediscovering the "Liberated Female Crook" The Media, Girls of Color, and Gangs Trends in Girls' Violence and Aggression Girl Gang Membership Girls and Gangs: Qualitative Studies Labeling Girls Violent? Girls, Gangs, and Media Hype: A Final Note 4. The Juvenile Justice System and Girls "The Best Place to Conquer Girls" Girls and Juvenile Justice Reform Deinstitutionalization and Judicial Paternalism: Challenges to the Double Standard of Juvenile Justice Rising Detentions and Racialized Justice Offense Patterns of Girls in Custody--Bootstrapping Deinstitutionalization or Transinstitutionalization? Girls and the Mental Health System Small Numbers Don't Mean Small Problems: Girls in Institutions Instead of Incarceration: What Could Be Done to Meet the Needs of Girls? Chapter 5. Trends in Women's Crime Unruly Women: A Brief History of Women's Offenses Trends in Women's Arrests How Could She? The Nature and Causes of Women's Crime Big Time/Small Time Pathways to Women's Crime Beyond the Street Woman: Resurrecting the Liberated Female Crook? The Revival of the "Violent Female Offender" Chapter 6. Drugs, Violence, and Women's Crime - with Karen Joe Laidler Drug Use in a Multiethnic Community A Profile of the Women The Family: Conflict and Comfort Dealing With Family Turmoil Pathway to Drugs Demystifying Women of Color Gender, Culture, and Drug Use "Crack Pipe as Pimp": Drugs, Ethnicity, and Gender in African American Communities Prostitution and Drug Use Victimization, Prostitution, and Women's Crime Conclusion Chapter 7. Sentencing Women to Prison: Equality Without Justice Trends in Women's Crime: A Reprise Women, Violent Crimes, and the War on Drugs Getting Tough on Women's Crime Building More Women's Prisons Profile of Women in U.S. Prisons Reducing Women's Imprisonment Through Effective Community-Based Strategies and Programs Detention Versus Prevention Chapter 8. Conclusion References Index About the Authors

Every year, girls account for one out of four arrests of young people in America (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1995, p. 226). Despite this, the young women who find themselves in the juvenile justice system either by formal arrest or by referral1 are almost completely invisible. Our stereotype of the juvenile delinquent is so indisputably male that the general public, those experts whose careers in criminology have been built studying “delinquency”, and those practitioners working with delinquent youth rarely if ever consider girls and their problems.

This article describes an evaluation of a prisoner-run delinquency prevention program at Hawaii's major prison. An after-the-fact matched group design was employed to determine the program's effectiveness in the prevention of delinquency in previously arrested youths. Examining the frequency and seriousness of police arrests in the year following exposure to the program, the study found the program had no effect on the delinquent behavior of females. Males who attended the program, however, were arrested at a significantly higher rate than their counterparts who did not hear the prisoners' presentation. The finding of higher recidivism among males who saw the program was further explored, and data are presented to show that this pattern is probably a product of some members of the treatment group's concurrent involvement in long-term delinquency prevention programs, rather than the simple result of exposure to the prisoner-run program itself.

This article argues that existing delinquency theories are fundamentally inadequate to the task of explaining female delinquency and official reactions to girls' deviance. To establish this, the article first reviews the degree of the androcentric bias in the major theories of delinquent behavior. Then the need for a feminist model of female delinquency is explored by reviewing the available evidence on girls' offending. This review shows that the extensive focus on disadvantaged males in public settings has meant that girls' victimization and the relationship between that experience and girls' crime has been systematically ignored. Also missed has been the central role played by the juvenile justice system in the sexualization of female delinquency and the criminalization of girls' survival strategies. Finally, it will be suggested that the official actions of the juvenile justice system should be understood as major forces in women's oppression as they have historically served to reinforce the obedience of all young women to the demands of patriarchal authority no matter how abusive and arbitrary.

It is a timeworn assumption that males and females differ radically in their delinquency. Indeed, “real” delinquency was once thought to be an exclusively male preserve. Albert Cohen, in his widely cited work, Delinquent Boys, provides one of the clearest academic articulations of this position. Because “boys collect stamps and girls collect boys,” Cohen felt it followed that the “problems of adjustment of men and women, of boys and girls, arise out of quite different circumstances and press for quite different solutions.” The delinquent, he concluded, was essentially “a rogue male” (Cohen, 1955, p. 140).

The purpose of this chapter is to examine and interpret the results of diversion and neighborhood delinquency programs, both of which contain some similarities and differences. In a general sense, both are designed to divert youths from delinquency and, given that their intent is the same, the division into the two categories is somewhat arbitrary. For historical reasons, however, diversion refers to alternatives for those youths who would otherwise be processed in a court of law and, in some cases, be placed in a correctional institution. In contrast, neighborhood programs are designed for those youths considered at higher risk for delinquency than other youths, rather than as alternatives for court processing. Though some neighborhood programs accept court referrals, these programs are not under the jurisdiction of the court and accept referrals from other sources. Participation in neighborhood programs is voluntary.