Girls in Trouble with the Law

Juvenile arrest rates in the United States have declined over the past decade, yet the percentage of girls in trouble with the law increased. Girls now are also more likely to enter the juvenile legal system as a result of violent events, rather than for minor violations for which previous generations of young women were more commonly detained. In
Girls in Trouble with the Law , sociologist Laurie Schaffner takes us inside female detention centers and explores the worlds of those who are incarcerated. Across the country, she finds that an overwhelming majority of these young women are from ethnic or racial minority groups, and most have experienced some sort of sexual abuse or assault. Focusing on the girls’ experiences of violence and the inequities of the criminal justice system, Schaffner explores three central questions. How have changing social norms of sexuality and emotional expression influenced adolescent girls’ transgressions? What do authority, consent, and choice mean to young urban women in trouble? How do they experience and understand the violent episodes in their lives? Offering a critical assessment of what she describes as a gender-insensitive juvenile justice system, Schaffner makes a compelling argument that current policies do not go far enough to empower disadvantaged girls so that they can overcome the social limitations and gender, sexual, and racial/ethnic discrimination that continue to plague young women growing up in the contemporary United States.