Girls in The Juvenile Justice System

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In 1899, the nation’s first juvenile court for youth under the age of 16 was established in Chicago to provide rehabilitation rather than punishment. By 1925, following the Chicago model, all but two states had juvenile courts whose goals were to turn youth into productive citizens utilizing treatment that included warnings, probation, and training school confinement(Cox et al. 2014, p.2). Treatment lasted until the child was “cured” or turned 21. Although judges spoke with the offending children and decided upon the punishment, the lack of established rules and poor rehabilitation led to unfair treatment. In 1967 “ U.S. Supreme Court case of In re Gault held that juveniles were entitled to the same constitutional due process rights as adults, beginning a national reform in juvenile justice and the system was repaired to afford children many of the same rights that adults have in court” (Cox et al. 2014, p.4). Also, state legislatures passed laws to crack down on juvenile crime, as recently, states have attempted strike a balance in their approach to juvenile justice systems as research suggests that locking youth away in large, secure juvenile facilities is ineffective treatment towards different genders in which it doesn’t provide appropriate rehabilitation.
While girls have historically made up a small percentage of the juvenile justice population, offending by girls is on the rise. Girls are the fastest growing segment of despite the overall drop in juvenile crime. Over the past two decades we have witnessed an exponential rise in the number of girls in detention facilities, jails and prisons; likewise, arrest rates for girls in almost all offense categories have outstripped that of boys over this same time per...

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...sociation (2003). Mental health and adolescent girls in the justice system Retrieve form http://www.nmha.org/children/justjuv/girlsjj.cfm.

American Bar Association. National Bar Association (2001). Justice by gender: The lack of appropriate prevention, diversion and treatment alternatives for girls in the justice system: a report. Retrieved from The Associations website: http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publishing/criminal_justice_section_newsletter/crimjust_juvjus_justicebygenderweb.authcheckdam.pdf

Cauffman, E., Grisso, T., & Sickmund, M. Future of Children. (2009) Understanding the Female Offender, 18, 5. Retrieved May 7, 2014, from www.futureofchildren.org

Cox, S. M., Allen, J. M., Hanser, R. D., & Conrad, J. J. (2014). Juvenile Justice A Guide to Theory, Policy and Practice (8th ed.). Sage publications Inc.

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