Girls and Women Impacted by the Criminal Legal System: New Challenges, Old Attitudes, Hopeful Futures

• In Event: Girls & Women Involved with Gangs, Violence, & the Criminal Legal System: Old Structures Dealing with New Phenomena

Abstract

Girls and women across the world continue to be harmed by disproportionate responses to their involvement in crime and deviance by the criminal legal system. The Beijing Rules adopted in 1985 suggest equity in treatment across genders. However, this cross-national study will show that the needs of girls are still secondary to that of boys, within a system that offers them little protection or support with new challenges. Drawing on findings from feminist studies in Honduras and the US. This paper will present two case studies that demonstrate how legal system responses to new challenges girls face with social media and within gangs are encased in outdated gendered attitudes. Concluding with the Good Lives Model as hope for the future.

Authors

• Michelle Lyttle Storrod, Widener University

• Ellen Van Damme, Field Research Coaching & Widener University