Offending Girls: Young Women and Youth Justice

ISBN-13: 9781843927587 / Angielski / Twarda / 2011 / 210 str.

Gilly Sharpe

Opis

Girls' bad behavior has attracted seemingly relentless poplar attention in recent years, with girls' violence and girl gangs commonly constructed as urgent and growing social problems. At the same time, the number of young women entering the youth justice system, including youth custody, has increased dramatically. This book is based on detailed qualitative research in two Youth Offending Teams and a Secure Training Centre - the first study of its kind since the 'modernization' of the youth justice system over a decade ago. It explores young women's accounts of their pathways into crime and the impact of youth justice intervention on their everyday lives. It also analyzes professionals' accounts of young female offenders, including the extent to which discourses problematising female youthful behavior have infiltrated professional discourse. Offending Girls challenges simplistic and demonising representations of 'bad' girls in the twenty-first century and argues that the interventionist thrust which characterizes the contemporary youth justice system has had a particularly pernicious impact on girls.

Spis treści

1. New Offending Girls?  2. Historical Perspectives on Offending Girls  3. The Construction of a Girlhood Crime Wave: Recent Trends in Young Women's Lawbreaking and Criminalisation  4. Reseraching New Offending Girls  5. Pathways into Crime and Criminalisation  6.  Accounting for Trouble: The Girls' Perspectives  7. The Trouble with Girls Today: Professional Perspectives on Young Women's Offending  8. Youth Justice for Girls in the Twenty-First Century  9. Conclusions and Recommendations

O autorze

Gilly Sharpe is Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Sheffield. She is currently engaged in research on desistance from crime, focusing particularly on women (ex)offenders. Prior to her academic career, she spent several years working as a practitioner in youth justice and related fields.