A new report says that while juvenile arrests overall have dropped over the past 20 years, the opposite is true for young girls. In fact, over the same 20-year period, a steadily increasing percentage of juveniles arrested and detained have been female.
It's a troubling reality that is partially caused by gender disparities in juvenile justice, says the report. Mother Jones reports that "[t]here's a gender gap in the detention of girls for low-level crimes: Nearly 40 percent of detained girls were brought in on status offenses (behavior that is only illegal when you're under 18), compared with just 25 percent of boys."
Racial inequity also plays a part in the increasing percentage of girls in the juvenile system. Statistics show that "in 2013, African American girls, the fastest-growing segment of the juvenile justice population, were 20 percent more likely to be detained than white girls, while American Indian girls were 50 percent more likely."
Girls in the juvenile justice system face a number of struggles and hardships, often related to past trauma. Troublingly, 31 percent of female justice-involved youth have personally experienced sexual violence, while 41 percent report being physically abused and 84 percent report having been exposed to family violence.
What's more, a "study cited in the report found that girls who had been detained were five times more likely to die by age 29 than children who had not." For Latina women, the contrast is even more stark: They are nine times more likely to die.
So why are girls an increasing part of the juvenile justice population? Keep reading below.
Mother Jones finds:
The gender gap [is a result of] the juvenile justice system's long-standing "protective and paternalistic" approach to dealing with delinquent girls. The system tends to detain girls, the authors write, because they're seen as needing protection. It's a strategy that is ill-suited to the personal histories of trauma, physical violence, and poverty that lead many girls into bad behavior. Even when the system acknowledges these factors, there are limited options available beyond traditional arrests and detention.
Girls who have experienced trauma and violence need programs, structures, and discipline processes that help address these issues and prepare them for a future. Throwing these girls in the juvenile system results in nothing but harm. It's just another example of our national pastime of putting punishment before treatment and rehabilitation.