In and Out of Crime: A Life Course Perspective on Girls' Delinquency (From Gender and Crime: Patterns in Victimization and Offending, P 17-40, 2006, Karen Heimer and Candace Kruttschnitt, eds., -- See NCJ-214516)

• NCJ Number: 214517
• Author(s): Peggy C. Giordano; Jill A. Deines; Stephen A. Cernkovich
• Date Published: 2006
• Length: 24 pages
• Sale Source: New York University Press
• Publication Format: Book Chapter
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This chapter presents results from the longitudinal Ohio Serious Offender Study, focusing specifically on whether the girls’ delinquency was grounded in gender or was due to more gender neutral factors.

Abstract

The data gained from the personal interviews with 66 serious female offenders indicated that while an understanding of the traditional or gender-neutral pathways to delinquency in the early years helped explain the delinquency of girls, traditional factors alone could not offer a comprehensive account of female delinquency. The narratives offered by the girls are marked by long histories of sexual abuse, a highly gendered factor that occurs within the more traditional circumstances of poverty, delinquent peers, and little parental control and care. The authors point out that young girls who experience sexual abuse yet live in more affluent neighborhoods, have few delinquent peers, and have high levels of parental support and supervision are unlikely to turn to delinquency as a coping mechanism. The findings thus underscore the importance of feminist perspectives as well as more traditional theories of delinquency in fully accounting for female offending. The long-term follow-up study with these serious female offenders also indicated that they continued to struggle with the traditional factors of poverty, disadvantaged neighborhoods, and offending peers as well as the gendered factors of sexual abuse and a recurring pattern of negative male influence. The Ohio Serious Offender Study involved in-home interviews with a random sample of male and female adolescents in Toledo, OH and interviews with the entire population of delinquent girls at the only State institution for girls and a sample of boy delinquents drawn from the three State institutions for boys. The resulting narratives and life histories were supplemented with arrest and incarceration records. Future research should focus on the processes involved with the desistance from crime, particularly the role of motivational changes which appear to be a gendered phenomenon. Notes