ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overall examination of key research on the contexts that produce girls’ violence, including a critical look at girls’ participation in gangs. It examines the law enforcement and justice practices that have impacted girls’ violent offense arrests, adjudications, and commitments. The long-standing “gendered habits” of researchers have meant that girls’ involvement with gangs and violence has been neglected or oversimplified. The challenges and limitations faced by gang girls in contemporary poverty-stricken neighborhoods have been largely confirmed by J. Miller’s research. M. Dorais and P. Corriveau’s research showed the complexity and negotiations gang girls face in terms of sexuality, sexual activity, and victimization. Both girls’ and women’s victimization and girls’ violence toward other girls are products of a system of sexual inequality and of one that valorizes male violence as agency and has girls growing up judging themselves and other girls through the eyes of boys and men.
