CRIME AND DELINQUENCY IN FEMALE JUVENILES

Crime and Delinquency in Female Juveniles

Crime and Delinquency in Female Juveniles

1. Introduction

The increasing involvement of girls in violent crime has been a matter of growing concern in the United States (Heide, 2001b). Feature articles in newspapers across the U.S. underscore the issue of violent behavior by female juveniles. Recent headlines in the Boston Globe, for example, included “Slashing reflects violence among girls; student charged after teen's face is cut and scarred with razor blades” (Slack, 2006) and “Vicious attacks by girls cliques seen increasing — Despite police statistics, violence causes worries” (Cramer, 2007).

Arrests of girls for fighting are occurring in cities across the country. A headline in The Washington Post, for example, was captioned “5 female students arrested in 2 separate fights at school” (Labb, 2007). With increasing frequency, fights by female teens are videotaped and placed on the web for others to watch. CBS News correspondent Kelly Wallace reported in January 2007 that typing in the word “girl fight” on YouTube returned more than 11,000 hits (CBS news, 2007). In January 2009, the same search resulted in 44,000 hits on YouTube, and more than 1,210,000 on Google. Such postings, for example, lead to arrests of girls in North Babylon, New York (CBS news, 2007), Norwood, Ohio (WLWT, 2007), and Melbourne, Florida (Local6, 2007).

This article briefly reviews the involvement of female juveniles in violent crime during the last four decades and then focuses specifically on their involvement in homicide. Analysis of data over time revealed different trends in arrest of girls for assault and murder, suggesting a need to address different types of violent behavior by girls. A review of the literature on girls who kill reveals that little has been written about the dynamics that lead female juveniles to engage in lethal violence. Three brief case studies are presented to illustrate how recent scientific findings on the adolescent brain and on the neurobiological effects of trauma are particularly helpful in explaining lethal violence by girls.

1.1. Girls' involvement in violent crime over time

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) includes four crimes in its crime index violent crime category: murder and non-negligent homicide, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. In 2005, girls comprised 18.4% of juvenile arrests for index violent crimes. Girls' involvement in violent crime was highest in aggravated assault. Almost one of four juvenile arrests for aggravated assault was female (23%). Girls comprised approximately 10% of those arrested for murder and robbery, and far less than 1% of those arrested for forcible rape (FBI, 2006).

More recent data on juvenile arrests covering the 10 year period 1996-2005 reveals five noteworthy findings. First, girls continue to account for a smaller overall proportion of violent crime arrests than boys. Second, juvenile arrests for violent crime generally decreased for both genders during this period. Third, the arrest patterns for the two groups diverged in some important ways from 1996 to 2005 ([FBI, 2006] and [Zahn et al., 2008]). Fourth, although juvenile arrests for index violent crime were ...