To Ianp Yonge Lind To my sister, Laura White To Ianp Yonge Lind To my sister, Laura White FOR INFORMATION: Copyright © 2013 by SAGE Publications, Inc. SAGE Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be 2455 Teller Road reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, Thousand Oaks, California 91320 electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, E-mail: [email protected] recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. SAGE Publications Ltd. Printed in the United States of America 1 Oliver’s Yard 55 City Road Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data London EC1Y 1SP United Kingdom Chesney-Lind, Meda. SAGE Publications India Pvt. Ltd. The female offender: girls, women, and crime / B 1/I 1 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area Meda Chesney-Lind, Lisa Pasko. — 3rd ed. Mathura Road, New Delhi 110 044 p. cm. India Includes bibliographical references and index. SAGE Publications Asia-Pacific Pte. Ltd. ISBN 978-1-4129-9669-3 (pbk.) 3 Church Street #10-04 Samsung Hub 1. Female offenders—United States. 2. Female Singapore 049483 juvenile delinquents—United States. 3. Discrimination in criminal justice administration—United States. I. Pasko, Lisa. II. Title. HV6046.C54 2013 364.3′740973—dc23 2011039710 Acquisitions Editor: Jerry Westby This book is printed on acid-free paper. Editorial Assistant: Laura Cheung Permissions Editor: Karen Ehrmann Production Editor: Laureen Gleason Copy Editor: Kim Husband Typesetter: C&M Digitals (P) Ltd. Proofreader: Theresa Kay Indexer: Gloria Tierney Cover Designer: Gail Buschman Marketing Manager: Terra Schultz 12 13 14 15 16 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 BrIEF CoNTENTS Preface ix Acknowledgments xi 1. Introduction 1 2. Girls’ Troubles and “Female Delinquency” 10 3. Girls, Gangs, and Violence 33 4. The Juvenile Justice System and Girls 57 5. Trends in Women’s Crime 97 6. Sentencing Women to Prison: Equality Without Justice 119 7. Female Offenders, Community Supervision, and Evidence-Based Practices 153 Janet T. Davidson 8. Conclusion 181 References 188 Index 212 About the Authors 223 DETAILED CoNTENTS Preface ix Acknowledgments xi 1. Introduction 1 2. Girls’ Troubles and “Female Delinquency” 10 Trends in Girls’ Arrests 11 Boys’ Theories and Girls’ Lives 16 Criminalizing Girls’ Survival: Abuse, Victimization, and Girls’ official Delinquency 24 Delinquency Theory and Gender: Beyond Status offenses 32 3. Girls, Gangs, and Violence 33 Girls Gone Wild? 33 The Media, Girls of Color, and Gangs 33 Trends in Girls’ Violence and Aggression 37 Girls, robbery, and “other” Assaults 39 Girl Gang Membership 42 Girls and Gangs: Qualitative Studies 45 Labeling Girls Violent? 54 Girls, Gangs, and Media Hype: A Final Note 55 4. The Juvenile Justice System and Girls 57 “The Best Place to Conquer Girls” 58 Girls and Juvenile Justice reform 62 Deinstitutionalization and Judicial Paternalism: Challenges to the Double Standard of Juvenile Justice 64 rising Detentions and racialized Justice 71 offense Patterns of Girls in Custody—Bootstrapping 80 Deinstitutionalization or Transinstitutionalization? Girls and the Mental Health System 83 Girls’ Sexuality in Institutional Environments 86 Human rights Abuses in Girls’ Institutions? 87 Instead of Incarceration: What Could Be Done to Meet the Needs of Girls? 91 5. Trends in Women’s Crime 97 Unruly Women: A Brief History of Women’s offenses 98 Trends in Women’s Arrests 100 How Could She? The Nature and Causes of Women’s Crime 102 Embezzlement 103 Driving Under the Influence 104 Larceny Theft/Shoplifting 104 Big Time/Small Time 106 Pathways to Women’s Crime 107 Beyond the Street Woman: resurrecting the Liberated Female Crook? 111 The revival of the “Violent Female offender” 114 6. Sentencing Women to Prison: Equality Without Justice 119 Trends in Women’s Crime: A reprise 120 Women, Violent Crimes, and the War on Drugs 121 Getting Tough on Women’s Crime 125 Building More Women’s Prisons 129 Profile of Women in U.S. Prisons 130 Childhoods of Women in Prison 130 Current Offenses 133 Property Crimes 134 Drug Use Among Women in Prison 135 Mothers Behind Bars 136 Race and Women’s Imprisonment 138 Different Versus Equal? 140 Prisons and Parity 141 reducing Women’s Imprisonment Through Effective Community-Based Strategies and Programs 148 Detention Versus Prevention 150 7. Female Offenders, Community Supervision, and Evidence-Based Practices 153 Janet T. Davidson Trends in Probation, Incarceration, and Parole 154 Evidence-Based Practices and Gender-Neutral Supervision 155 Challenging Gender-Neutral risk-Driven Supervision 162 Criminal History 162 Education and Employment 163 Financial 164 Family and Marital 165 Accommodation 167 Alcohol and Drug Problems 168 Emotional and Personal 169 Challenging Gender-Neutral Supervision: Women’s Histories of Victimization, Health Problems, and Child Care Needs 171 Histories of Abuse 171 Health and Children 173 Supervision and reintegration 174 Moving Forward: Gender-Equitable Supervision for Female offenders in the Community 175 Promising Examples for Moving Forward 177 8. Conclusion 181 References 188 Index 212 About the Authors 223 PrEFACE W hat is clear to scholars and practitioners of criminal justice is that the female offender has long been ignored. Indeed, until the 1970s, serious discussion about the gendered nature of offending was absent from most criminological research and from correctional programming and poli- cies. If girls and women were considered at all, their offenses were often trivialized or they were portrayed in highly heterosexist ways. The gendered nature of abuse and victimization that impacts girls’ and women’s crime and affects their pathways to court and correctional involvement was also largely overlooked or misunderstood by the system and by researchers. By keeping the female offender as the central focus, this book removes the shroud of invisibility from girls’ and women’s offending, their victimiza- tion histories, and their experiences with court and corrections. As in previ- ous editions of this book, this third edition explains the historical and contemporary experiences of girls, women, and crime. It interrogates the complexities of current issues and offers critical examination of recent reports that girls and women are becoming more like male offenders in the criminal justice system. In addition to updated statistical data and literature on risk behaviors, arrests, sentencing, and incarceration, new to this edition is the greater discus- sion of several key areas, such as the increases in girls’ arrests for assault over the past decade, the impact of sexual abuse and survival sex on girls’ and women’s court involvement, the criminalization of sexual minority girls in the youth correctional system, the growth of the female drug offender population, the increase in the number of executions of women, and the struggle to develop gender-responsive programming and stronger advocacy efforts in order to improve the lives of offending girls and women in our communities. ix