Female Juvenile Offenders

Crying is not going to get me home
The outside tears are nothing but water.
I’m crying on the inside where no one can see it.
-14 year old girl in a California Juvenile Hall
From “No Place to Hide”

Girls are the fastest growing segment of the juvenile justice population [in the USA], despite the overall drop in juvenile crime. Over the past two decades we have witnessed an exponential rise in the number of girls in detention facilities, jails and prisons; likewise, arrest rates for girls in almost all offense categories have outstripped that of boys over this same time period. While juvenile crime rates—particularly those for violent crimes—have steadily decreased since peaking in 1994, arrest, detention, and dispositional custody data show an increase in both the number and percentage of girls in the juvenile justice system—a trend that runs counter to that of boys.

[From Justice by Gender: The Lack of Appropriate Prevention, Diversion & Treatment Alternatives for Girls in the Justice System- A Report by the American Bar Association and the National Bar Association]

Source

American Bar Association

See also

• National Bar Association
• Juvenile Crime- A Special Study: FBI
• Female Juvenile Offenders Defining an Early-Onset Pathway for Delinquency
• Unique Needs of Girls in the Juvenile Justice System
• Girls in the Juvenile Justice System Fact Sheet: JJDPA
• Female Offenders in the Juvenile Justice System: OJJDP
• Female Offenders in the Juvenile Justics System: NIC Library
• Bad Boys or Poor Parents- Relations to Female Juvenile Delinquency: JRA
• Mythbusters About Juvenile Delinquency: Princeton
• The Female Juvenile Offender in Hawaii
• Profile of the Female Juvenile Offender: Virginia
• Girls in the Juvenile Justice System- Towards Effective Gender Responsive Programming
• The Shackling of Juvenile Offenders: Debate in Juvenile Justice Policy
• Girls & Violence and Juvenile Justice Resources
• Moral Remediation, Multi-systemic Therapy & Effective Interventions for Serious Juvenile Offenders: IJC
• Resources for Social Services, Corrections & Court Service Providers Regarding Juvenile Female Offenders
• Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care for Chronic Juvenile Offenders: A Blueprint for Violence Prevention 
• Indian Laws relating to Women and Children
• Liberation Theory of Female Criminality
• Freda Adler