School of Social Work, Baylor University, 4100 S. Main Street, Houston, TX 77002.
Soc Work. 2020 Apr 1;65(2):149-158. doi: 10.1093/sw/swaa005.
Female involvement in the juvenile justice system has steadily increased in the United States over the past three decades. During this time, as male arrests have declined, female arrests have increased. Although many social workers have responded to these trends with a national call to identify and address the unique needs of these girls, we lack much high-quality research, including empirically supported interventions or programming to serve the needs of female youths involved in the justice system. This article provides a summary of the extant research that helps document the unique needs of these female youths and national policy efforts and practice considerations for social work practitioners. These needs and policy initiatives offer important opportunities for social workers to conduct research to improve the understanding of this population and also ways in which to provide services that address these youths' complex needs. The article concludes that these female youths-most of whom are not a danger to society-need services instead of involvement in the justice system.
在过去的三十年中，美国参与少年司法系统的女性人数稳步增加。在此期间，随着男性被捕人数的减少，女性被捕人数有所增加。尽管许多社会工作者对这些趋势做出了回应，呼吁在全国范围内确定并满足这些女孩的独特需求，但我们缺乏高质量的研究，包括针对服务于参与司法系统的女性青少年的需求的实证支持的干预措施或方案。本文总结了有助于记录这些女性青少年独特需求的现有研究，以及国家政策努力和社会工作者的实践考虑因素。这些需求和政策倡议为社会工作者提供了开展研究的重要机会，以增进对这一人群的了解，以及提供服务的方式，以满足这些青少年的复杂需求。文章的结论是，这些少女——其中大多数对社会没有威胁——需要的是服务，而不是参与司法系统。
