Praise for Girls in Trouble with the Law

"Girls in Trouble with the Law offers readers a brilliant window for re-viewing the gender, race, and class politics of juvenile justice. Readers will be filled with outrage, and yet fueled by Schaffner's passionate sense of possibility and vision for 'what must be.'"-Michelle Fine, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, The Graduate Center, CUNY.

In Girls in Trouble with the Law, sociologist Laurie Schaffner takes us inside juvenile detention centers and explores the worlds of the young women incarcerated within. Across the nation, girls of color are disproportionately represented in detention facilities, and many report having experienced physical harm and sexual assaults. For girls, the meaning of these and other factors such as the violence they experience remain undertheorized and below the radar of mainstream sociolegal scholarship. When gender is considered as an analytic category, Schaffner shows how gender is often seen through an outmoded lens.

Offering a critical assessment of what she describes as a gender-insensitive juvenile legal system, Schaffner makes a compelling argument that current policies do not go far enough to empower disadvantaged girls so that communities can assist them in overcoming the social limitations and gender, sexual, and racial/ethnic discrimination that continue to plague young women growing up in contemporary United States.

Laurie Schaffner is an associate professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Illustrations
Tables
Preface
Introduction: Girls Trouble the Law
Chapter One: New Troubles for Girls
Chapter Two: Injury, Gender, and Trouble
Chapter Three: Empty Families, Sexuality, and Trouble
Chapter Four: Gender, Violence, and Trouble
Chapter Five: Children, Gender, and Corrections
Chapter Six: Pathways, Politics, Policies, and Programs
Notes
Bibliography
Index