NCJ Number
180849
Journal
Hastings Women's Law Journal Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Dated: Winter 1998 Pages: 1-25
Date Published
1998
Length
25 pages
Annotation
This exploratory essay suggests that girl-specific delinquency (behavior for which girls are most often drawn into the juvenile justice system) is a coping strategy for dealing with underlying adverse circumstances in their lives.
Abstract
Part I of this essay introduces the concept of sexualized solutions of female juvenile offenders. Part II presents a brief historical overview of girl-specific delinquency. Part III explores four formations of gendered sexualizations and delinquency: resisting conformity through oppositional behavior; filling an empty family life with an older boyfriend; acting on lesbian desire and its repercussions; and responding to sexual injury. The author builds on Chesney-Lind's notion that many of the processes involved in adjudicating female juvenile delinquency are often criminalizations of girls' material, emotional, and psychological survival strategies. For example, a key component for understanding the connection between gender biases and sexualized female juvenile delinquency is an understanding of how emotional reactions to sexualized trauma unconsciously guide behavior. Social forces sexualize the context of some girls' lives and encourage them to focus on narrow concepts of sexuality and sexual expressions. The essay suggests that for some girls, sexualized delinquent behavior may be a solution to other larger life problems, rather than the problem itself. When girls use such solutions in coping with emotional trauma, however, they are often penalized by the juvenile justice system for acting like the stereotypical "bad girls" defined by a patriarchal society. Until young women's delinquent behavior is viewed as arising from emotional strategies supported by sociocultural influences such as sexual orientation, race, and ethnicity, as well as socioeconomic class conditions, the juvenile justice and social service systems will continue to offer ineffectual social and legal interventions. 151 footnotes