Exploring diversity: Understanding and responding to offending among young women and girls

Citation

McIvor G (2000) Exploring diversity: Understanding and responding to offending among young women and girls. In: Barry M, Burke O, Connolly J & Curran J (eds.) Children, Young People and Crime in Britain and Ireland: From Exclusion to Inclusion. Edinburgh: Scottish Executive Central Research Unit, pp. 44-54. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/156620/0042076.pdf

Abstract
First paragraph: The issue of gender and crime - or, more specifically, female offending - has traditionally received scant attention by academics and by policy-makers. Arguably this is because women constitute a relatively small proportion of offenders who appear before the courts. The consequence is that our current understanding of offending among children and young people has been derived largely from studies of young men and boys. More significantly, perhaps, the systems and approaches which have been developed to respond to offending among young people have been based upon a highly gendered conceptualisation of crime and delinquency which, in turn, tends to limit their appropriateness for young women and girls.