NCJ Number
73934
Journal
ANNALES MEDICO-PSYCHOLOGIQUES Volume: 137 Issue: 8 Dated: (1979) Pages: 839-843
Date Published
1979
Length
5 pages
Annotation
Current trends in crimes committed by females are illustrated with a crime situation in which three young girls were involved.
Abstract
Women commit only about 15 percent of all crimes, although they contribute to male crimes through encouragement or child neglect. While the rates for female crimes are growing, the increases are far less rapid than rates for men. As has traditionally been the case, women are rarely involved in violent crimes, except for infanticide. Most female delinquents belong professionally and socially to the socioeconomically disadvantaged classes. Women very frequently commit crimes (in 62 percent of the cases) in the week before their menstrual period when they tend to be aggressive and irritable. Violent crimes by juvenile girls, especially in the United States, prove similar to acts of young male delinquents. In both cases offenders seek identity and independence. Crimes are marked by sadistic eroticism and impulsiveness. Adolescents are often torn between the adult world and the world of their peers; frequently their acts are motivated by rejection of adult values, an insatiable desire for change, and alienation from their individual families. Three girls between 16 and 17 years old were implicated in the assault and robbery of a female student. All fit the model described. One is reacting to the divorce and remarriage of her parents as well as to rejection by her mother. The second is the child of a violent alcoholic father; she seeks to escape the passive female role of her mother by imitating aggressive, violent male delinquents. The third is the product of overly strict upbringing by an authoritarian father and a perfectionist mother; she exhibits severe psychopathic imbalance marked by impulsiveness and pathological hostility. Although their unconscious motivations differ, all share a sense of injustice and indifference towards the conditions under which they were raised. Both predisposition and social environment appear to be factors in the evolution of the girl's criminal careers.