This book offers an ethnographic study of the lives of girls in the juvenile justice system. Based on rich, narrative accounts, the girls at the center of the study are viewed as confronted with the power of simultaneous race, class, and gender hierarchies. Through this framework, we see how the girls navigate this challenge by seeking status in their everyday lives: in their families; juvenile justice institutions; and neighborhood organizations, including gangs. Through analyzing the ways that the girls strive for higher social status, this book provokes debate about how policies and programs may be creatively rethought to incorporate this pursuit. Girls and Juvenile Justice offers a glimpse into the hearts, minds, and souls of adolescent girls. It will be of great interest for scholars of criminal justice, sociology, women’s studies, and social-psychology.
The new edition of Girls, Delinquency, and Juvenile Justice combines cutting-edge research and expanded coverage of girls’ delinquency, including coverage of girls in gangs and the sexual trafficking of girls, to provide students with an accessible, up-to-date, and globally oriented textbook. Including global perspectives and coverage of cutting-edge research, this is the only textbook to deal exclusively with girls and crime Offers expanded coverage of girls in gangs and emerging literature on the sexual trafficking of girls Pulls together and analyzes all existing literature on the subject of female delinquency Brings to light new research on a wide range of issues, including the conditions of confinement for girls incarcerated in juvenile jails and prisons, Latina girls, and gender responsive programming Explores the moral panic around "violent," "bad," and "mean" girls
This report serves to assess the Nation¿s progress in addressing juvenile crime. The 2007 data bring some welcome news, as the recent trend of modest increases in juvenile arrests in 2005 and 2006 has been broken. The good news is reflected not only in the 2% decline in overall juvenile arrests and the 3% decline in juvenile arrests for violent crimes from 2006 to 2007 but also in the data for most offense categories, for males and females, and for white and minority youth. However, one area that merits continued attention is disproportionate minority contact with the juvenile justice system. For example, the arrest rate for robbery among black juveniles was more than 10 times that for white youth in 2007. Charts and tables.
This monograph outlines the promising practices in programming for girls who are already involved in the juvenile justice system or who are at risk of delinquency. The purpose of the monograph is to provide practical information to practitioners and policymakers on how to design and implement gender-specific programs for girls. The first chapter emphasizes the urgent need for programming for girls and offers a statistical look at female delinquency, provides a summary of female adolescent theory, and identifies the risk factors girls face because of gender. Chapter 2 describes the planning involved in creating gender-specific programs. It cites the policies that encourage gender-specific programming for girls and presents reports from States that have taken ground-breaking steps on behalf of girls. It defines gender-specific programming and provides an overview of the elements programs must provide for girls. Chapter 3 provides an in-depth look at the key elements and features of programs that are designed to serve the specific needs of girls. An appendix describes 16 promising programs currently offering gender-specific services to girls in both residential and community-based settings.
Even though youth crime rates have fallen since the mid-1990s, public fear and political rhetoric over the issue have heightened. The Columbine shootings and other sensational incidents add to the furor. Often overlooked are the underlying problems of child poverty, social disadvantage, and the pitfalls inherent to adolescent decisionmaking that contribute to youth crime. From a policy standpoint, adolescent offenders are caught in the crossfire between nurturance of youth and punishment of criminals, between rehabilitation and "get tough" pronouncements. In the midst of this emotional debate, the National Research Council's Panel on Juvenile Crime steps forward with an authoritative review of the best available data and analysis. Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice presents recommendations for addressing the many aspects of America's youth crime problem. This timely release discusses patterns and trends in crimes by children and adolescentsâ€"trends revealed by arrest data, victim reports, and other sources; youth crime within general crime; and race and sex disparities. The book explores desistanceâ€"the probability that delinquency or criminal activities decrease with ageâ€"and evaluates different approaches to predicting future crime rates. Why do young people turn to delinquency? Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice presents what we know and what we urgently need to find out about contributing factors, ranging from prenatal care, differences in temperament, and family influences to the role of peer relationships, the impact of the school policies toward delinquency, and the broader influences of the neighborhood and community. Equally important, this book examines a range of solutions: Prevention and intervention efforts directed to individuals, peer groups, and families, as well as day care-, school- and community-based initiatives. Intervention within the juvenile justice system. Role of the police. Processing and detention of youth offenders. Transferring youths to the adult judicial system. Residential placement of juveniles. The book includes background on the American juvenile court system, useful comparisons with the juvenile justice systems of other nations, and other important information for assessing this problem.
At the dawn of the twenty-first century, panic about girls’ offending in Britain reached fever pitch. No longer sugar and spice, a ‘new breed’ of girl, the hedonistic, violent, binge-drinking ‘ladette’, was reported to have emerged. At the same time, the number of young women entering the youth justice system, including youth custody, increased dramatically. Offending Girls challenges simplistic and demonising popular representations of 'bad' girls and examines what exactly is new about the ‘new’ offending girl. In the light of enormous social and cultural changes affecting girls’ lives, and expectations of them, since previous British research in this area, the book investigates whether popular stereotypes problematising female youthful behaviour resonate with the accounts of criminalised young women themselves, and to what extent they have infiltrated professional youth justice discourse. Through the lens of original detailed qualitative research in two Youth Offending Teams and a Secure Training Centre – the first study of its kind since the 'modernisation' of the youth justice system over a decade ago – Offending Girls questions whether the ‘new’ youth justice system is delivering justice for girls and young women. It also contends that the panic about an ‘unprecedented crime wave’ amongst girls is not supported by robust evidence, but that the interventionist thrust which characterises contemporary youth justice has had a particularly pernicious impact on girls. It will be key reading for students and academics working in the areas of criminology, criminal and youth justice, education, gender studies, youth studies, social work, sociology and social policy, as well as youth and criminal justice practitioners and policy-makers.
Complicated Lives focuses on the lives of sixty-five drug-using girls in the juvenile justice system (living in group homes, a residential treatment center, and a youth correctional facility) who grew up in families characterized by parental drug use, violence, and child maltreatment. Vera Lopez situates girls’ relationships with parents who fail to live up to idealized parenting norms and examines how these relationships change over time, and ultimately contribute to the girls’ future drug use and involvement in the justice system. While Lopez’s subjects express concerns and doubt in their chances for success, Lopez provides an optimistic prescription for reform and improvement of the lives of these young women and presents a number of suggestions ranging from enhanced cultural competency training for all juvenile justice professionals to developing stronger collaborations between youth and adult serving systems and agencies.
Without strong proof, policy advocates along with some scholars have causally linked declines in juvenile offending and incarceration with evidence-based and rehabilitation-oriented policy reform. Such studies have called for a shift back to rehabilitative ideals augmented by innovative strategies that emphasize cultures of care, and in the cases of system-involved girls, ‘gender-responsive’ programs, anchored in feminist literature. These programs have also caught the attention of feminist scholars who cast doubt on both their design and implementation. Gendered Injustice offers a unique contribution to the latter line of scholarship, and critically examines claims of innovation, empowerment, and gender-responsivity in youth correction that currently dominate the field. Drawing on rich ethnographic data, this book uncovers the reality of, and gives voice to, the experiences and continued mistreatment of marginalized girls housed in locked institutions in the US State of California. By providing detailed insight into the detention experiences and the pathways of several young women, this book draws stark comparisons between the lived experience of young women in detention with the official rhetoric of empowerment that dominates public discourse. This book reveals the ways in which institutional policies and practices are designed to neglect and, in many instances, re-victimize inmates. This is essential reading for those engaged in corrections, juvenile justice, gender and crime, and feminist criminology.
