No Place for Girls to Go: How Juvenile Court Officials Respond to Substance Abuse Among Girls and Boys (From Gender and Crime: Patterns in Victimization and Offending, P 67-90, 2006, Karen Heimer and Candace Kruttschnitt, eds., -- See NCJ-214516)

• NCJ Number: 214519
• Author(s): Hilary Smith; Nancy Rodriguez; Marjorie S. Zatz
• 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 examines how juvenile court staff perceive drug use and its antecedents among delinquent boys and girls, with an emphasis on how their perceptions of gendered pathways into drug abuse impact their decisionmaking processes.

Abstract

Results indicated that prior victimization played an important role in the substance abuse of both boys and girls: 19 percent of girls’ files and 12 percent of boys’ files had a documented reference to physical or psychological abuse. The files also showed that 24 percent of the girls’ files and less than 3 percent of the boys’ files contained references to sexual abuse. Interview data also underscored the link between substance abuse and victimization among the youths. Case file narratives also indicated that both boys and girls were heavily influenced by delinquent peers: 45 percent of girls’ files and 41 percent of boys’ files contained references to peers. However, boys were described as associating with same age delinquent peers while girls were described as being heavily influenced by older males. In terms of judicial decisionmaking, the research took place early in the development of drug courts and as such, most court dispositions of drug-involved youth were for standard probation and out-of-home placements. Boys were most likely to receive an out-of-home placement at a State facility: 32 percent of boys received this placement compared with 15 percent of girls. Medication for drug abuse problems was found to run along gender and racial lines and was largely limited to White females. Although the findings underscore the different pathways to drug abuse by boys and girls, the findings also revealed that girls and boys were often responded to in a similar manner by the justice system. Indeed, fewer options for treatment and services were provided to girls in juvenile court. Data included the official case file narratives from court records for a random sample of 174 girls and a matched sample of boys referred to juvenile probation in Arizona during 1999. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with 14 juvenile probation officers. Notes