| Why Do We Think Young Women Are
Committing More Violent Offences?
Since its inception, however, the legislation has had its most progressive elements gradually chiselled away. Further investigation revealed that two young women had been charged with robbery - one about ten years earlier, the other had just occurred. Prior to that, there were apparently no charges or convictions of girls or young women on record. So, technically, the statistic was correct. The impression created by the 200 percent figure and the accompanying media hype, however, created an incredibly skewed and inaccurate picture of young women suddenly erupting into violent behaviour. The reality was that the violent behaviour that was perceived to be erupting was pretty much non-existent and the risk posed to the public by the two young women involved was incredibly low. Recently, I have received other calls from reporters, students, and members of the public, requesting information about the increasing number of girls in gangs. A review of the media accounts leaves one to conclude that the most common causes of this apparent phenomenon are women's desire to be equal to men and the breakdown of the family, which has resulted in girls not having their fathers around to help socialize them. The facts do not support either hypothesis. It is interesting to note that up until the 1970s, the occasional violent acts committed by women were generally ignored by law enforcement authorities worldwide. During the seventies, a new mythology emerged that linked the women's movement to a new wave of violent offending by women. White adult women, as leaders of the women's emancipation movement, were identified as causing the Surge in serious criminal offending by women. American author Meda Chesney-Lind calls this the "liberation" hypothesis. She further says that in the 1990s, we are in the midst of a second wave that causally links women's equality with girls'—especially poor, minority girls'—participation in gangs. Throughout both "waves" there have been no significant changes in the levels and patterns of girls' violent and aggressive behaviour in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom show no appreciable differences in behaviour but marked differences in external responses to violent or aggressive actions, especially those perpetuated by youth. Election campaign law and order agendas have resulted in candidates trying to appear tougher than their opponents on crime and morality issues. The development of so-called zero tolerance policies have resulted in increased policing and prosecuting of all forms of violence committed by boys and girls. Proportionately, because the overall number of young women charged with violent offences remains relatively low, the increased numbers create more substantial percentage increases in the statistics for girls than they do for boys. Regressive changes have failed youth and further marginalized many with special needs, particularly young women. In addition, there has been an increased criminalization of young women's survival skills. In the past, it was relatively easy to institutionalize or enforce social controls on young women if they ran away, missed curfew, engaged in sexual activity, or displayed behaviour that might be defined as "unfeminine" or, worse yet, unmanageable. Under the old Juvenile Delinquents Act, a young woman could be imprisoned in a juvenile home for such activities. The introduction of the Young Offenders Act (YOA) in 1982 was supposed to end the arbitrary detention of young women for such activities. However, the way the YOA is being implemented by police and judges belies its legislative intent. What the YOA is Supposed To Be About It is now more than 13 years since the Young Offenders Act was proclaimed into law and paraded internationally as one of the most innovative and progressive legislative responses to juvenile justice. Since its inception, however, the legislation has had its most progressive elements gradually chiselled away.
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Five years ago, I received a call from a
reporter asking me whether I would be prepared to do an interview with him
about the increase in violent offending by young women. "What
increase?" was my response. He said his local police source had advised
him that their community had seen a 200 percent increase in robbery offences
alone over the past decade. When I asked him how many actual cases those
figures represented, he was not certain.