NCJ Number
153366
Journal
Corrections Compendium Volume: 19 Issue: 11 Dated: (November 1994) Pages: 4-6
Date Published
1994
Length
3 pages
Annotation
This article documents the paucity of services female delinquents and victims receive compared to those received by male delinquents.
Abstract
The juvenile female's low priority status persists throughout the entire youth service system. Because no other faction of the child service delivery system claims the delinquent, distressed juvenile female as its priority, the troubled girl is left adrift, often unnoticed throughout the system. Girls are also victimized physically, sexually, and emotionally. Desperate and scared, many girls flee to the streets to escape violence, incest, or neglect at home. Once safe from the abuse of their families, the girls discover that they have exchanged the terror of home for the terror of the streets. It is long past time for America to become a hospitable place for delinquent and troubled girls. "Girls' issues" such as incest, sexual abuse, and domestic violence are still not recognized as the epidemic they have become, and consequently, so little help is available to so many in need. Many of the special needs of women and girls are still ignored, denied, or misunderstood, not just in juvenile corrections but on a systemwide basis.