Girls at Risk: An Overview of Female Delinquency in the Fiftieth State -- A Report of the Hawaii Girls Project, Volume One

• NCJ Number: 169109
• Author(s): M Chesney-Lind; D Kato; J Koo; K F Clark
• Date Published: 1997
• Length: 52 pages
• Grant Number(s): 95-JE-FX-0015
• Sponsoring Agency: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)
• Sale Source: University of Hawaii at Manoa; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

In Hawaii, one out of three of those arrested are girls; the number of girls and boys arrested in Hawaii has climbed steadily over the past decade, and this trend has been far more marked among girls.

Abstract

Data indicate intermediate school aged girls commit delinquent acts but at significantly lower levels than their male counterparts. Exceptions to this generalization, however, include drug and alcohol use, minor property crimes, and the use of violence. Dramatic gender differences have been observed at the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility. For example, girls are far less involved in violent offenses than boys and are more often jailed for violations of probation conditions. Despite official arrest trends and self-reported delinquency data, young women who find themselves in the juvenile justice system through formal arrest or referral are almost completely invisible. Trends in the arrest of girls in Hawaii are compared with national trends, and self-reported data on delinquency and gang membership are provided. An appendix defines levels of misconduct. 25 references, 18 tables, and 4 charts