Girls in Trouble with the Law

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 assistant professor of sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

A much needed, well-grounded exploration of the trials and tribulations of aggressive girls who fall prey to the accumulation of social risk factors in their lives. Schaffner blends first-hand accounts with empirical data from multiple sources to tell a compelling nonfiction narrative.

Girls in Trouble with the Law is an important addition to the growing scholarship on girls and women and the legal system. The strength of the book is Schaffner's use of the girls' own words as they describe their family lives and the pattern of sexual and physical abuse at the hands of parents and other adults who should offer them nurturance and protection. Schaffner performs an important service for these victims. Her advocacy of early intervention...[and] new approaches to meeting their needs should be acted upon by schools and social service agencies.

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.'

This is a superb work, intermingling poetry, narrative, interviews, and examples to create a fascinating overview of what girls experience in the juvenile corrections system, as well as how they are perceived by the people entrusted with their care. Schaffner's book is well-conceived, beautifully written and extremely clear.