Boarding Schools for Girls

"When no boys are in the classroom girls take part more. They answer more questions, and they argue more. I guess you would say they debate more, but I remember the same situation happening when boys were in the class and a couple of them yelled out "Cat Fight!" The girls got angry, and they stopped debating."

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Rise in Delinquency Among Teen Girls

Recent research has recorded an increase in delinquent behavior by girls. Some controversy exists over whether this increase can be fully attributed to changing behaviors by young women, or if evolving responses by communities and law enforcement agencies are also contributing to the apparent rise in crime among young females. Involvement with law enforcement and incarceration for young women has a high correlation with substance abuse. Other factors that have been linked to young female delinquency include history of physical or sexual abuse, history of domestic violence, time spent in foster care, psychological distress, and experience of trauma.

In 2003, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration conducted a National Survey on Drug Use and Health. As part of this survey, youth were asked to indicate how often they participated in certain delinquent behaviors, including serious fighting at school or work, and fighting in a group against another group. In both cases, the study recorded a rise from the previous year. The percentage of girls that engaged in a serious fight at school or work rose from 16.2 percent to 20.0 percent; the percentage of girls that engaged in group-on-group fighting rose from 13.5 percent to 16.8 percent.

A report published in 2006 by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) revealed some interesting insights into young female delinquency. The report found that 20 percent of female arrests involved a person young than age 18, compared to 15 percent for male arrests. In addition, the reported announced that the female proportion of delinquency cases increased steadily between 1991 and 2002-from 19.0 percent to 26.0 percent. The female proportion of juvenile arrests rose significantly between 1980 and 2002 for a number of crimes, including aggravated assault, simple assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft vandalism, weapons law violations, liquor law violations, and curfew and loitering law violations.

Studies conducted in 1997 and 1998, published in Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, found that female juvenile offenders frequently suffered from PTSD. In a 1997 study, girls among a sample of incarcerated youth were found to be 50 percent more likely to have PTSD than their male counterparts. This study also found that the traumas suffered by females differed from those suffered by males; males were more likely to report having witnessed a violent event, while females more frequently reported having been the victim of a violent event. A 1998 study which examined a sample of female juvenile offenders found a 70.0 percent rate of exposure to some kind of trauma, a 65.3 percent rate of lifetime occurrence of PTSD symptoms, and 49.9 percent rate of current occurrence of PTSD symptoms.

Data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (1999) also illuminates the complex factors of female delinquency. According to the Bureau, 60 percent of females under correctional authority report being the victim of physical or sexual assault in their lifetimes, and 69 percent of those indicate that they suffered the assault before reaching the age of 18, and 32 percent report that they were abused by someone they knew-a relative or intimate acquaintance. The Bureau also reports that 20 percent of female offenders have spent time in the foster care system, 58 percent grew up in single-parent households, and 34 percent grew up in households where parents abused substances.

A 1998 report by the non-profit research and advocacy group Drug Strategies points to substance abuse as the common denominator among girls and women in the American justice system. The report offers copious statistics to support this thesis. Figures from the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring indicate that from 1990 to 1997, about two-thirds of female arrestees tested positive for drugs (approximately the same as male arrestees).

Some experts believe that higher arrest rates for young females are tied to changing social perceptions. Historically, females have been more likely to be viewed as accomplices and accessories to male criminal activity. Although the women's liberation movement took place in the 1970s, society has continued, in some sense, to view women as took gentle or weak to perpetuate violence. Only now are law enforcement agencies, and mental health and substance abuse providers beginning to grapple with the origins and nature of female delinquency and violence.

References
Archer, Lianne, CSW. Girls, Gangs, & Crime - Profile of the Young Female Offender. Social Work Today, 5 (2), Page 38. Retrieved on August 4, 2008 from http://www.socialworktoday.com/archive/swt_0305p38.htm

Keeping Score 1998: Women and Drugs: Looking at the Federal Drug Control Budget. Drug Strategies. (1998). Retrieved on August 4, 2008 from http://www.drugstrategies.org/ks1998/crime.html

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2007). Results from the 2006 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: National Findings (Office of Applied Studies, NSDUH Series H-32, DHHS Publication No. SMA 07-4293. Rockville, MD.

Cauffman, E., Feldman, S.S., Waterman, J., and Steiner, H. (1998). Posttraumatic stress disorder among female juvenile offenders. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 37 (11), 1209-1217. Retrieve on August 4, 2008, from http://www.nctsnet.org/nctsn_assets/pdfs/edu_materials/trauma_among_girls_in_jjsys.pdf

Snyder, Howard N., and Sickmund, Melissa. 2006. Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 2006 National Report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Steiner, H., Garcia, I.G., & Mathews, Z. (1997). Posttraumatic stress disorder in incarcerated juvenile delinquents. Journal of American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 36(3), 357-365. Retrieved on August 4, 2008, from http://www.nctsnet.org/nctsn_assets/pdfs/edu_materials/trauma_among_girls_in_jjsys.pdf

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