Abstract
Although the number of girls served by the juvenile justice system has grown dramatically, little is known about the adult offending patterns of delinquent girls and the factors associated with their persistence and desistance from adult crime. To address this gap, we prospectively track 499 girls (62% Black, 16% Hispanic) discharged from juvenile justice facilities in the early 1990s and document their adult arrests, convictions, and incarcerations between the ages of 16-28. Trajectory analysis reveals four distinct early adult offending paths: Rare/Non-Offending (RN), Low Chronic (LC), Low-Rising (LR), and High Chronic (HC). Girls assigned to the LR and LC path are responsible for a disproportionate amount of adult arrests and are more likely than girls on the RN and LC path to come from homes characterized by high levels of family dysfunction and child maltreatment. Adoption of a therapeutic, trauma-sensitive and family-centered approach to female delinquency programming is recommended.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 355-366 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | Journal of Youth and Adolescence |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Mar 2009 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Acknowledgements This research was supported by Award No: 2006-IJ-CX-0014 awarded by the National Institute of Justice Programs, US Department of Justice. Criminal arrest data were provided by the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (NYS DCJS). Incarceration data were provided by the New York State Department of Correctional Services (NYS DOCS). The opinions, findings, methods of analysis, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Justice, NYS DCJS or NYS DOCS.
Keywords
- Female delinquency
- Recidivism
- Trajectories
