Girls in the Juvenile Justice System:
What You Should Know
by Judge Cindy S. Lederman
Girls are the fastest growing population in the juvenile justice system. Yet, they still seem invisible because so little is known about them. There is a tendency, therefore, to treat them like delinquent boys. The fact is delinquent girls differ in their developmental paths to delinquent behavior, life experiences, therapeutic problems, and needs. These differences must be reflected in the way the juvenile justice system deals with girls and in the design of interventions for them.
At the turn of the
century, the rare girl was brought before the court. When she was, it was
usually for behavior resulting from an expression of sexuality and freedom that
was not acceptable to a paternalistic court reflecting the concerns of society.
Fifteen-year-old Arreta Skinner was committed to the Florida Industrial School
for Girls in 1939 for running away, refusing to attend school, refusing to
follow her parents’ instructions, and being intimate with a married man.
Arreta’s parents, who testified against her at the trial, had a change of heart
after she was sentenced and sought her release. The Supreme Court of Florida
refused and ruled:
It
is difficult to understand why the parents of this girl, with knowledge of her
reprehensible conduct, would seek liberty and permit her to return to vice and
wayward tendencies in the face of the moral and wholesome atmosphere
surrounding the Industrial School for delinquent girls. The wisdom of the
Legislature in establishing or making this possible for this school to meet the
problem girls of Florida can not be too strongly
commended.1
Historically, “wayward” girls received harsher sentences than boys as the state attempted to define morality for girls. Adolescent girls are still more likely to be incarcerated for less serious crimes than boys.2
The juvenile justice system has been caught unaware and ill-equipped to deal with the influx of girls in the system. Today, the alarming fact is that girls comprise 25% of the arrests in this country3 and more and more are being arrested for violent crimes.4
So little is known about delinquent girls because they have not been a focus of national research. The response by the juvenile justice system is to treat them like boys, an unworkable solution that can result in more harm than good.
Girls are quite
different. The most stunning difference is the degree of victimization they
have experienced in their young lives. Close to 70% of girls in the juvenile
justice system have histories of physical abuse, compared to the approximate
rate of 20% for teenage females in the general population.5
Sexual abuse is also prevalent. Surveys of females in the juvenile justice
system and in shelters report rates of sexual abuse and assault of over 70%
versus 32% for boys.6
The result is that
many girls run away to escape, endangering their lives and sometimes engaging
in prostitution to survive.
The lack of protective factors that exist in the families of abused and neglected girls, such as close parental supervision, appropriate discipline, and effective parental role models, facilitates girls’ derailment into the juvenile justice system.7
Characteristics of abuse and neglect such as the lack of social controls at home, the effects of victimization, including depression, anxiety and psychiatric symptomology, and family dysfunction all contribute to the derailment of girls from the path of healthy childhood.
Girls who commit juvenile offenses have significant therapeutic needs. Unfortunately these needs usually have not been met by the family and are not being recognized and treated by the juvenile justice system.
A study of girls in the California juvenile justice system by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency found:
n more than 95% of the girls lacked a stable home environment;
n more than 54% of the girls reported having mothers who had been arrested or incarcerated; and
n 46% had fathers who had been incarcerated.8
The home environment
enhances the opportunities of delinquent girls to engage in relationships with
deviant friends, relatives, and potential mates and to model their antisocial
behavior:9 yet another step on the path to derailment.
Most girls in the juvenile justice system will become mothers. In fact many have already been pregnant. The average age of the first voluntary sexual experience of delinquent girls in a Hawaii study was 13.810 and 13.61 in the GAP Miami study discussed later. There is great concern for the well-being of future generations of delinquent girls—children born to mothers with histories of victimization, emotional problems, elevated psychopathology and instability—who did not have the chance to learn how to nurture a child and make a child feel safe from their own parents.
In
Miami-Dade County, Florida, girls in the detention center have a favorite time
of day. Every afternoon, women from the Girls’ Advocacy Project (GAP) are met
with cries of joy when they enter the girl’s wing of the Miami Detention
Center. GAP, a grant-funded project created by juvenile court judges and funded
by the Department of Juvenile Justice, provides gender-specific programming,
advocacy, and support for girls in the detention center.
A primary purpose of the program is to learn about the girls to develop appropriate programming. As each girl enters the detention center, extensive profiles are administered that document the girl’s needs and histories. Over 500 profiles have been collected to date. These profiles are used to tailor programming to the girls. Evaluation of the program has shown enhanced learning in areas such as conflict resolution, substance abuse, sexuality and health, and the dangers of gang affiliation.
The girls contribute to a GAP journal in which they record messages for the girls who come after them into the system. GAP is supported by a Community Advisory Board of prominent women in Miami who visit the girls and try to meet their needs. The GAP Community Advisory Board, under the leadership of Eileen Nexer Brown and Sharon Langer, provides outreach to the girls. Community Advisory Board activities include: collecting books for the girls; finding dance teachers to give classes in the detention center; donating computers and exercise equipment for the girls’ wing of the detention center; providing tote bags filled with toiletries and clothing for the girls as they are released; and one-on-one mentoring.
The Community Advisory Board has given the girls a voice. Sometimes when the GAP Community Advisory Board members meet with the girls in the detention center a girl will ask “Why do you care about us so much?” Perhaps someday our communities, through GAP programs everywhere, can teach these special girls that they deserve to be cared about, that they are a priority and the question will never be asked again.
It is imperative that
attorneys and juvenile justice professionals recognize that delinquent girls
must be a priority in the juvenile justice system. As more and more girls are
arrested it is important that gender-specific programming be developed. The
programming must have a therapeutic focus reflecting the different mental
health needs of girls and must provide psychiatric treatment, particularly to
deal with the psychological effects of sexual abuse.
Program staff and juvenile justice personnel must receive special training in gender issues relating to delinquent girls. The health needs of girls must be met by sensitive, trained personnel. The girls in the Miami detention center complain of a cold, unsympathetic male physician who is insensitive to the health and emotional needs of adolescent girls.
Perhaps the most important thing the juvenile justice community can do is talk to the girls, learn from them, and come to understand and appreciate their life experiences. Many of them have talents that need to be nurtured. So many of them are misguided children who have never had a healthy parental role model. Their lack of judgment and problematic actions are logical based on their experiences and what they have learned from their families about how to resolve conflict and how to survive. It is important to ask them the reasons for their actions, such as why they are running away, before they are ordered back to what often has been an abusive home environment.
Cindy Lederman is an administrative judge in the 11th Judicial Circuit Court, Juvenile Division, Miami, FL.
Endnotes
1. Skinner v. Skipper, 186 So. 2d 545 (1939).
2. Chamberlain & Reid. “Differences in Risk
Factors and Adjustment for Male and Female Delinquents in Foster Care.” Journal
of Child and Family Studies 3(1), 1994, 25.
3. Guiding Principles for Promising Female
Programming. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention, 1998, 3.
4. What About Girls? Washington, DC: Office of
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, September 1998.
5. Owen & Bloom. “Profiling the Needs of Young
Female Offenders.” In A Report to the Executive Staff of the California
Youth Authority, July 1997, 8.
6. Chamberlain & Reid, 24.
7. Lederman & Brown. “Entangled in the Shadows:
Girls in the Juvenile Justice System.” Buffalo Law Review, in press.
8. Acoca, Leslie. “Investing in Girls: A 21st Century
Strategy.” Juvenile Justice 6(1), October 1999.
9. Lederman & Brown, in press.
10. Chesney-Lind & Shelden. Girls, Delinquency
and Juvenile Justice, West/Wadsworth, 1998, 199.