Delinquent Identities: An Intersectionality Approach

• In Event: 600 - Section on Crime, Law and Deviance Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 12. Deviant and Delinquent Identities II

Abstract

As female imprisonment in the United States continues to increase more studies focusing on gendered aspects of offending have increased. Given the disproportionate contact of minorities with the criminal justice system, an intersectional approach can be used to examine gender, race, and class. By examining the multiple, overlapping systems of oppression, we can explore new outcomes. This paper utilizes intersectionality to explore the motivations behind identity formation of inner-city minority youth. This paper draws on the ethnographic work of Victor Rios and Nikki Jones to examine the compounding systems of oppression that both limit and define the available routes for identity formation of the girls and boys in the respective studies. The interaction of hypercriminalization, the youth control complex, gendered norms and expected behaviors are analyzed to understand their confounding effect on the process of identity formation in youths. An intersectional perspective will show how survival skills deployed by youth clash with the multiple system of oppression. This paper highlights the need for further study of male and female delinquent identities using an intersectional approach.

Author

• Andrew Craig McNeely, Texas A&M University