Female Offender : Girls, Women And Crime - 2nd edition

Summary: Scholarship in criminology over the last few decades has often left little room for research and theory on how female offenders are perceived and handled in the criminal justice system. In truth, one out of every four juveniles arrested is female and the population of women in prison has tripled in the past decade. Co-authored by Meda Chesney-Lind, one of the pioneers in the development of the feminist theoretical perspective in criminology, the subject matter of The ...show more Female Offender: Girls, Women and Crime, Second Edition redresses the balance by providing critical insight into these issues.

In an engaging style, authors Meda Chesney-Lind and Lisa Pasko explore gender and cultural factors in women's lives that often precede criminal behavior and address the question of whether female offenders are more violent today than in the past. The authors provide a revealing look at how public discomfort with the idea of women as criminals significantly impacts the treatment received by this offender population.

Features and Benefits:

• Covers not only adult female offenders, but also how the interaction of sexism, racism, and social class inequalities results in girls becoming criminal offenders
• Focuses on consequences of the imprisonment binge that has resulted in an increasing number of girls and women being incarcerated
• Updated throughout with recent research and theories, new or expanded federal and state programs, and statistical data for such things as violence against girls and women, girls' gang membership, incarceration rates, and crimes perpetrated by girls and women
• Bringing much-needed attention to the state of these often "invisible" wrongdoers, The Female Offender enlightens and intrigues readers including academics, researchers, and students in the areas of criminology, criminal justice, sociology, and women's studies. Likewise, anyone seeking cutting-edge information about a growing offender population will want to read this book.

• Meda Chesney-Lind is one of the premier criminologists in the field today and an early pioneer in the development of the feminist theoretical perspective in criminology, which has become a major paradigm. Feminist criminology demonstrates how gender matters, not only in terms of one's trajectory into crime, but in terms of how the criminal justice system responds to the offenders under its authority. The Female Offender, Second Edition is informed by the feminist perspective throughout.
• The book looks closely not just at adult female offenders, but also at how the interaction of sexism, racism and social class inequalities results in girls becoming criminal offenders.
• Focuses on consequences of the imprisonment binge that has resulted in an increasing number of girls and women being incarcerated. This is a social phenomenon of great importance.
• Updated throughout for recent research and theories, new or expanded federal and state programs that have appeared since the first edition was published, and statistical data for such things as violence against girls and women, girls gang membership, incarceration rates, crimes perpetrated by girls and women.

Edition/Copyright: 2ND 04
Cover: Paperback
Publisher: Sage Publications, Inc.
Published: 07/28/2003

View Author Bio

Chesney-Lind, Meda : University of Hawaii at Manoa

Pasko, Lisa : University of Hawaii at Manoa

View Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. Introduction

Chapter 2. Girls' Troubles and "Female Delinquency

Trends in Girls' Arrests
Boys' Theories and Girls' Lives
Criminalizing Girls' Survival: Abuse, Victimization, and Girls' Official Delinquency
Delinquency Theory and Gender: Beyond Status Offenses

Chapter 3. Girls, Gangs, and Violence: Rediscovering the "Liberated Female Crook"

The Media, Girls of Color, and Gangs
Trends in Girls' Violence and Aggression
Girl Gang Membership
Girls and Gangs: Qualitative Studies
Labeling Girls Violent?
Girls, Gangs, and Media Hype: A Final Note

Chapter 4. The Juvenile Justice System and Girls

"The Best Place to Conquer Girls"
Girls and Juvenile Justice Reform
Deinstitutionalization and Judicial Paternalism: Challenges to the Double Standard of Juvenile Justice
Rising Detentions and Racialized Justice
Offense Patterns of Girls in Custody--Bootstrapping
Deinstitutionalization or Transinstitutionalization? Girls and the Mental Health System
Small Numbers Don't Mean Small Problems: Girls in Institutions
Instead of Incarceration: What Could Be Done to Meet the Needs of Girls?

Chapter 5. Trends in Women's Crime

Unruly Women: A Brief History of Women's Offenses
Trends in Women's Arrests
How Could She? The Nature and Causes of Women's Crime
Big Time/Small Time
Pathways to Women's Crime
Beyond the Street Woman: Resurrecting the Liberated Female Crook?
The Revival of the "Violent Female Offender"

Chapter 6. Drugs, Violence, and Women's Crime with Karen Joe Laidler

Drug Use in a Multiethnic Community
A Profile of the Women
The Family: Conflict and Comfort
Dealing With Family Turmoil
Pathway to Drugs
Demystifying Women of Color
Gender, Culture, and Drug Use
"Crack Pipe as Pimp": Drugs, Ethnicity, and Gender in African American Communities
Prostitution and Drug Use
Victimization, Prostitution, and Women's Crime
Conclusion

Chapter 7. Sentencing Women to Prison: Equality Without Justice

Trends in Women's Crime: A Reprise
Women, Violent Crimes, and the War on Drugs
Getting Tough on Women's Crime
Building More Women's Prisons
Profile of Women in U.S. Prisons
Reducing Women's Imprisonment Through Effective Community-Based Strategies and Programs
Detention Versus Prevention

Chapter 8. Conclusion

References
Index
About the Authors

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Other Editions of Female Offender : Girls, Women And Crime:

Female Offender: Girls, Women and Crime - 3 edition

ISBN13: 978-1412996693