Girls in Trouble with the Law (Rutgers Series in Childhood Studies) - Softcover

Schaffner, Professor Laurie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0813538343 ISBN 13: 9780813538341

Publisher: Rutgers University Press, 2006

Synopsis

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.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

“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.’”—Michelle Fine, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, The Graduate Center, CUNY. “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 and beautifully written.”—Lynn Chancer, author of High Profile Crimes: When Legal Cases Become Social Causes.

About the Author:

Laurie Schaffner is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

About this edition

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0813538343
• ISBN 13: 9780813538341
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 280