Gender-Specific Services in the Juvenile Justice System: A Critical Examination

This article reviews the literature on gender-specific services for girls in the juvenile justice system. Drawing on feminist theorizing, it offers four critiques: (a) that the increasing involvement of girls in the system is taken as a real indicator of greater crime and delinquency; (b) that an essentialized notion of gender is used; (c) that the problem is located in the individual, to the exclusion of solutions that focus on system/structural changes; and (d) that a focus on girls’ victimization obscures girls’ agency and perpetuates girls’ continued punishment for behaviors that are more acceptable among boys. The article concludes by proposing a framework for rethinking gender in the design and delivery of services within and outside the juvenile justice system.