“Violent” Girls: How Girls in Detention and System Actors Explain, Justify, and Resist the Use of Detention

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

Abstract

Over the last several decades, the proportion of girls referred to the juvenile legal system (JLS) due to “violent” arrests has increased. Prior literature suggests that relabeling and bootstrapping practices, zero tolerance policies in schools, and changes in domestic violence arrest policies largely explain these trends, rather than changes in girls’ behavior. At the same time, research suggests that girls often experience paternalism in the JLS whereby system actors identify girls as victims to justify continued surveillance by the JLS. This literature, however, does not specifically explore detention-based pathways for JLS-involved girls and how detention facilities may exacerbate these trends. We draw on in-depth qualitative interviews with system actors (n = 6) and girls (n = 25) held in a high-security youth detention facility to investigate this gap. We examined girls’ pathways into the JLS by contextualizing how the system labels and responds to their “violence” and how their presumed need for protection results in more punitive system responses. Finally, we discuss policy and practice considerations to inform ways to reduce reliance on detention facilities by exploring the structural conditions influencing girls’ pathways to detention through the interplay of labeling girls as violent and asserting their need to be protected.

Authors

• Valerie Anderson, University of Missouri-St. Louis

• Nicole McKenna, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

• Symone Pate, University of Cincinnati