Delinquent Girls before the Courts

Abstract

One hundred and twenty-six delinquent girls are compared with 730 boys drawn from the same population of schoolchildren in terms of the pattern of their delinquency, certain socio-demographic background characteristics and their disposal by the courts. The prevalence, frequency and seriousness of female delinquency is found to be much less than that of the boys. However, in terms of social background and offence behaviour the similarities are more marked than any differences. Sex-related offences form an insignificant part of female delinquency. Courts show a slight tendency to deal more severely with females. Caution in the use of institutional samples for the study of female delinquency is suggested.