Female Delinquency Essays - Criminology, Juvenile Delinquency

Female Delinquency One of the most important issues in crime today is Juvenile Delinquency. It is too often the cause that people see it as something ?new? and a problem that needs to be dealt with by today's society. Female delinquency is and has been rapidly increasing in the past few years. In Girls, Delinquency, and Juvenile Justice, Lind and Shelden give an overview of juvenile delinquency among females. To fully understand the question of who, where, when, how, and why females are delinquent, it is necessary to first understand the nature of female delinquency. To comprehend the entire study of female delinquency, it is also imperative to become acquainted with the theories why females commit such delinquencies and crimes. Also, to understand the way of life and the delinquent acts of females. Females are also involved in the subculture of gangs. And what happens when these females become part of the juvenile justice system? When females are arrested for their involvement of delinquent acts they enter the justice system, but what are the courts doing to endure that these young women receive the appropriate sentencing? If sent to a detention center exactly where are they going and what goes on there? Lind and Shelden interviewed a sample of incarcerated females about their experience as female delinquents. An overview of the study of female delinquency will be discussed using the works of Lind and Shelden as a secondary source data and it will conclude whether females that have been part of the justice system are now integrated into our society as law-abiding citizens. Society often overlooks at the reasons why young females commit crimes and delinquent acts. It is necessary that we take a look at the nature of female delinquency to better understand what has driven these young women to commit delinquent acts. The majority of girls that become delinquent are shaped by problems that they face in today's society. Such problems include, little power given to women, few jobs options, and fewer civil rights in comparison to men, and not to mention the root of the problem which in most cases is their home. The majority of these females come from low-income and broken homes where they are often raised by a single parent. The most common type of crimes committed by female delinquents is larceny-theft, better known as ?shoplifting.? According to Morris, females are more often detected by store personnel because it is excepted that women tend to shoplift more than men, and therefore are watched more closely. An explanation for shoplifting (Morris) is a ?subconscious motives (kleptomania), depression or poverty. Temptation is another reason why girls shoplift, they believe that popularity is tied with physical appearance and the participation in fashion and fads. This is especially true in teenage girls from poor families because these teens feel that they need to be part of the teenage subculture in order to fit in at school and among their peers. The status offenses that are most committed by young females are running away and curfew violations, but with these minor acts come major consequences which sometimes it includes prostitution. Statistics estimate that over one million youths under the age of eighteen run away from homes each year and an estimated million leave ?by mutual consent? or are ?throwaways? (Roberts, 1987:xi). Most of the youths that run away remain within ten miles from home and at least sixty-percent return home within three days. Some of the reasons why these females leave their home is in flight from sexual victimization that occurs in the home. Other run away girls leave their home because they are rebellious and are often drop-outs that tend to be angry and they are alienated from their parents. An estimated 600,000 prostitute girls are under the age of sixteen and they majority of these girls have been run aways. The abuse of these girls often continues from abusive pimps and customers . Theories of female delinquency date back to the first scholarly ?father? of criminology Caesar Lombroso. According to Lombroso, all criminal behavior could be explained as the behavior of ?biological throwbacks? and criminals were often seen as a less highly evolved normal, law-abiding citizen. In the works of Lombroso, one could find a book filled with figures of women's weights, measurement of their lower jaws, brains, eyes, noses, craniums, and hands. Lombroso concluded that ?females were congenitally less inclined toward crime than males because of their sedentary nature and their biological roles as caretakers of children.? But when