NCJ Number
73911
Journal
ANNALES DE VAUCRESSON Dated: special issue (1979) Pages: 63-73
Date Published
1979
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This paper deals with female juvenile delinquents and the discrimination they encounter within the juvenile justice system, showing that such discrimination is the result of the legal guardianship issue which is responsible for labeling young girls as criminals.
Abstract
Not only parents, but also society, the police, and the juvenile courts are determined to protect young girls against themselves, under the traditional double standard which condemns in females the same behavior it condones, even approves, in their male counterparts. The crime rate of adult females has increased only 60.2 percent between 1960 and 1975, whereas the rate for female juveniles has almost tripled. The type of behavior defined as crime in female juveniles consists, however, chiefly of status offenses such as rebellion against parental authority, which -- when repeated -semantically escalates into ungovernability and moral depravity. Female roles as envisaged in parental expectations are responsible for the parents' attitudes toward their daughters, whom they do not hesitate to report to the authorities for noncriminal behavior. A recent USA study found that 75 percent of the young girls in correctional institutions are in the statutory, noncriminal category versus the majority of male juveniles institutionalized for adult-type offenses, such as various types of theft. A Philadelphia study indicates an ambivalent attitude by police officers toward female juveniles, whom they often fail to arrest for drug-related and other offenses, while dealing with them harshly for defying parental authority. American sociological researchers, such as Elizabeth Gold and Kenneth Wooden, emphasize the combination of harshness and paternalism toward delinquent girls by correctional officials and juvenile judges for sexual infractions, and a tendency to institutionalize the girls for their own protection -- meaning, of course, for the protection of the conventional moral values of society.