Under Lock and Key: Trauma, Marginalization, and Girls' Juvenile Justice Involvement

Abstract

This article explores social and legal predictors of justice involvement for female juvenile offenders. Specifically, it examines the significance of trauma and marginalization in determinants of girls' detention and commitment as well as the formal decisions made about them. Using a mixed method approach of case file analysis and interview data, the authors explain the following overall findings: 1) detention is widely used on all offenders, most commonly justified in the conventional language of “protection” when applied to girls; 2) girls are more often committed to correctional facilities because of the effects (school failure and crystal methamphetamine use) of the sexual violence they experienced, and rarely for the violence they caused; and 3) for female juvenile offenders, juvenile justice decision makers consider histories of trauma and lack of resources as equally as important as offense histories when recommending them for commitment. This article concludes with implications for girl offenders and juvenile justice policy.