Improving the Lives of Girls and Young Women in the Justice System (?) Gilly Sharpe University of Sheffield g.h.sharpe@sheffield.ac.uk

‘Feminist pathways’ into crime ‘Feminist pathways’ research: important gender differences in routes into crime, especially experiencing family, intimate partner and other male-perpetrated violence Histories of state ‘care’ – frequent neglect/violence experienced there too The deeper a young woman has penetrated the youth justice system = (generally) the greater the likelihood she has experienced (multiple forms of) victimisation …....BUT….. Victimisation does not cause offending…important intervening variables, including agency (non-)responses to abuse and exploitation of young women History of victimisation may itself increase the likelihood of subsequent arrest/conviction/court-ordered penal intervention/custody (+breach?)

Gender-responsive programming Interventions for: Apprehended female lawbreakers; Girls ‘at risk of offending’ Aims: promote gender equality; sensitive and effective responses to girls’ specific (criminogenic) needs Programme foci: self-esteem enhancement; promote healthy relationships; address victimisation; ‘empowerment’.

Growing Out of Crime (leave the girls alone) Female offending peaks at 14-15 years One-quarter of girls vs. two-fifths of boys under 18 re-arrested within 12 months Some law-breaking fairly common amongst girls – normal and unremarkable part of (working-class?) female, as well as male, adolescence Evidence of criminogenic effects of any formal youth justice system involvement (McAra and McVie, 2007 – Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime).

Individual risks/needs or oppressive social circumstances? Individual young women constructed as needy or deficient Risky ‘vulnerabilities’ ‘Protective’ incarceration / ‘therapunitive’ sentencing (Carlen) Assessment of need in a risk-led penal context inevitably surrenders to the logic of risk reduction and the attendant risks of punishing individual(ised) welfare needs Focus on gender-specific needs whilst sidelining gendered, classed and age-discriminatory social injustices? Legitimacy of punishment when ignored as victims?  

Institutional Neglect Welfare inaction may be an important factor influencing girls’ pathways from victimisation to offending (as well as mental health problems, etc.) Criminalised girls frequently failed/ignored/blamed by state agencies when they are victims Welfare inaction may (cruelly and ironically) result in increased risk and increased penal intervention (inc. to address/survive past victimisation) What does this communicate to girls about their value as people?

Critical education: a strategy for increasing justice for girls Broad aim of exposing – and ameliorating – structural patriarchal and anti-youth systems resulting in failures to protect girls and to respond to those who abuse/neglect/violate them Aim of (real) empowerment – orientation towards social action and social change Help young women in trouble with the law to: “make sense of their biographies by analysing the ways in which larger social forces have shaped their families, communities and individual life chances [such that] attempting to change social structure becomes the intervention” (Goddard and Myers 2011: 662-3).