NCJ Number
182759
Date Published
1999
Length
26 pages
Annotation
This review of literature on violence and aggression in female juveniles notes that although females comprise a small percentage of the violent juvenile offender population, female juvenile offending, especially violent offending, is increasing at a time when rates of juvenile offending and violent offending are decreasing.
Abstract
The arrests of 723,000 females for juvenile offenses in 1996 represented a 106-percent increase over the 350,000 arrested in 1989. The number of female juveniles arrested for violent crimes increased by 25 percent between 1992 and 1996, whereas arrests of males remained constant. Delinquency cases involving females receive less severe outcomes than delinquency cases involving males at all stages of juvenile processing. Data on juvenile status offenses reveal that females are more likely to be petitioned for running away, whereas males are more likely to be petitioned for liquor law violations. Self-report data indicate greater gender equality than arrest data do, particularly for less serious property crimes, status offenses, and substance use. Female juvenile offenders differ from males in abuse histories and mental health functioning in that they are much more likely to have experienced abuse as children and to have mental health symptoms in the clinical range. Prevention and intervention approaches have mostly been developed and tested with male samples. Feminist critiques of the juvenile justice system target differential and discriminatory treatment of female offenders. Potter and Molidor argued in 1998 that a combination of ecological, feminist, and female adolescent developmental principles can guide programming with female adolescents. Figure and 80 references