ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the importance of social and situational context to an understanding of girls’ violence (and to girls’ understanding of violence). The research study1 that forms the basis of the chapter commenced, in Scotland, against a backdrop of increasing concern in Britain about violence by, and among, young people. Youth violence is rapidly becoming one of the most contentious issues in current debates about crime and criminal justice policy and, while the main focus has been on the violence of young males, part of the concern has been about the perceived increase in violence as measured by violent offending by girls and young women.2 In both academic (e.g. Hardy and Howitt 1998) and media accounts (e.g. Brinkworth and Burrell 1994), girls’ violence is commonly portrayed as more grave and disquieting than boys’ violence, and as presenting more of a problem (Batchelor et al. 2001). While there is evidence to support claims that young women are increasingly being drawn into the criminal justice system for violent offences,3 closer scrutiny of the official figures reveals that, in fact, young women account for a very small percentage of violent crime,4 and violent crime forms a tiny percentage of young women’s offending in general.5 Moreover, this pattern has remained largely unchanged for the past 20 years.
