ABSTRACT
In recent years frequent reports that young women’s offending, and especially their violence, is escalating have led to calls that more must be done to tackle the growing ‘problem’ of girls’ offending behaviour. However, neither youth justice policy nor academic study of youth justice practice has paid any serious attention to young women. This chapter begins by analysing recent trends in the criminalisation and punishment of young women and argues that it is principally changes in police and court processing that have inflated girls’ official crime rates and propelled them into the youth justice system. For those girls who appear in court, the penalties they receive are more intrusive and more often custodial than previously, and the rate at which they are punished for non-compliance has also increased. The second part of the chapter, which draws on data collected for a larger study of girls and youth justice, illustrates that young women themselves may experience statutory supervision as stigmatising, irrelevant to their needs and apt to terminate abruptly, leaving them without support and effecting no real change in the material circumstances of their lives. I argue that more does indeed need to be done with girls, not because of the risk they pose to public safety, which is minimal, but on account of their gendered welfare needs, their powerlessness on account of their age and their impoverished backgrounds. I conclude by proposing that more attention ought to be paid to the needs of all young women – many of whom share similar experiences with girls who have offended – and that working with young female offenders
outside the youth justice system has the potential to normalise offending girls’ needs and experiences, rather than single them out as ‘bad’ girls. Moreover, such a normalising strategy may pay dividends by encouraging solidarity and mutual support among girls.
