Gender Injustice: System-Level Juvenile Justice Reforms for Girls

With increasingly higher representation of young women and girls in juvenile justice systems, efforts to reform these systems must include an intentional focus on redesigning for a more developmental approach that supports the healing and healthy development of girls and young women. This report released by the National Crittenton Foundation found that gender injustice reform efforts routinely fail to tailor initiatives to issues that girls face. Despite research showing that girls often are criminalized for behaviors that result from the abuse, violence, adversity, and deprivation they have experienced, few reform initiatives intervene along those pathways or address the specific ways in which the system fails them. Many of the problems discussed in this report are not unique to girls—and many of the suggested paths forward can benefit both boys and girls. However, because girls are frequently left out of reform discussions, an intentional focus on girls is needed to ensure that they fully benefit from system reforms. Visit National Crittenton's website to read the full article.