Girls done wrong: the number of girls arrested is on the rise, but is the system meeting their needs?

When Jessica Nolan was 13, she shoplifted some pants and shirts from a department store. This misadventure earned her a trip to juvenile lockup and 90 days on probation. But Jessica didn't respond well to the rules imposed by a judge: She violated her curfew, was late to school, and sometimes missed school altogether.

"Instead of getting grounded, I got incarcerated," says Jessica, now 22, explaining how those original 90 days ultimately turned into four years in various juvenile-detention facilities, group homes and rehabilitation programs. "There was never another criminal act. It was all violating my probation."

Hers is a common story. It's the kind that more juvenile-justice experts are paying attention to, as they try to understand why adolescent girls have become the fastest-growing segment of young offenders, and how to handle them.

The juvenile justice system once dealt almost exclusively with boys. But between 1988 and 1997, delinquency cases involving girls increased by 83 percent, according to the American Bar Association's 2001 report, "Justice by Gender." By 1999, girls accounted for 27 percent of all juvenile arrests.

Indeed, during the 1990s, the percentage of girls' arrests increased, while the percentage of boys' arrests decreased in most categories. One notable increase was in aggravated assault (attacks with a weapon), a crime not often associated with girls.

It's not that girls are getting more violent, experts say; it's that the world, and consequently the justice system, is looking at them differently. For one thing, many girls used to be diverted out of the system from the start.

"Ten years ago, girls and boys would be picked up by the police, and the girls would be sent home," says Francine Sherman, director of the Juvenile Rights Advocacy Project in Boston. "The assumption was that the boys were the ringleaders. That doesn't happen anymore."

GIRLS TREATED MORE HARSHLY

In fact, the pendulum has swung the other way. Girls are now more often detained for less serious offenses than boys, and are also more likely to be cited for contempt of court, according to the "Justice by Gender" report. "When gifts do the same behaviors as boys, they're treated more harshly," says Joanne Belknap, a sociology professor at the University of Colorado who has studied the issue.

The numbers are even more pronounced when it comes to being sent back to juvenile detention for parole violations: 54 percent for girls, compared with 19 percent for boys, according to a recent study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. "Girls are more likely to run away and not abide by curfews," Sherman says. "Once you're in the system, what we would consider normal adolescent not-obeying-the-rules gets you locked up."

Gifts are more vocal and likely to talk back to authorities, experts say; they need to talk out their problems as part of their treatment. They are also more likely to have suffered physical or sexual abuse. Yet the system was not set up for that.

"There are no services for girls in juvenile detention facilities," says Meda Chesney-Lind, a professor of women's studies at the University of Hawaii. "This is a system designed for boys, and no one really knows how to work with girls. Girls have different problems."

FROM 1991 TO 2000, ARRESTS OF GIRLS
INCREASED MORE--OR DECREASED LESS--THAN
BOYS' ARRESTS IN MOST CATEGORIES.

                     MALES under 18            FEMALES under 18

                % decrease   % increase   % decrease   % increase

AGGRAVATED        -15.7%                                  44%
ASSAULT

ARSON              -9.7%                                  20.7%

OTHER                          23.7%                      77.9%
ASSAULTS

VANDALISM         -24.5%                                  17.7%

WEAPONS           -29.4%                                  17.5%

DRUG-ABUSE                    135.1%                     219.7%
VIOLATIONS

CURFEW AND                     70.2%                     111.1%
LOITERING-LAW
VIOLATIONS

Note: Table made from bar graph.