NCJ Number
78568
Date Published
1980
Length
37 pages
Annotation
Presentations and recommendations are reported from a 1980 western conference that focused primarily on the extent and contributing factors of delinquency and its prevention among Asian-Pacific American females between the ages of 12 to 17.
Abstract
Conference participants included adults and youths from the major Asian-Pacific groups--Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, and Guamanian. They came primarily from California and Washington State, with a few students from Guam, Hawaii, and Alaska. A dearth of statistics on juvenile delinquency problems among Asian-Pacific-American female juveniles was found. This was believed generally to be due to strong family and subcultural pressures on Asian-Pacific females to be submissive and obedient to rigid moral standards, as well as to the tendency of juvenile justice systems to be lenient and divert Asian-Pacific female juveniles from formal juvenile justice processing, in comparison with the more severe handling of white, black, and Hispanic females. Some factors tending to produce maladjustment in Asian-Pacific-American juveniles in general were identified as cultural conflicts of values and male and female role models between the dominant American and the Asian-Pacific traditions, alienation of Asian-Pacific juveniles from their parents due to differing responses to American cultural influences, poor communication between criminal justice and social service representatives and Asian-Pacific youth, and heavy drug use among juveniles in general. Recommendations include the use of more bilingual/bicultural Asian-Pacific-American counselors in the schools, more sensitivity training for personnel of public agencies, programs to give Asian-Pacific females more clearly defined female role models, the development of a data base on female Asian-Pacific-American juvenile offenders, and a structure to increase dialogue between youth and their parents. The community and agency resources represented at the conference are listed.