Citation

Bowker LH, Klein MW. Adolescence 1983; 18(72): 739-751.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1983, Libra Publishers)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

6666701

Abstract

A large portion of the research carried out to date on juvenile delinquency and gang behavior has been concentrated on male delinquents. For example, Thrasher's study (1927) of 1,313 gangs in Chicago devoted less than a page to the question of whether or not females form gangs in the same way that males do. When females are included in delinquency studies, their behavior is almost always explained in psychological or social-psychological terms. The general reasoning is that females commit delinquent acts or join delinquent gangs because they are socially maladjusted, come from broken and unhappy homes, and do not relate well to the opposite sex. In this article, we juxtapose this theoretical perspective to a social structural explanation of both female juvenile delinquency and female gang membership, and then test these two alternative explanations for juvenile delinquency using data on black, female juveniles collected in Los Angeles during the mid-1960s.

Language: en