Girls exercising their equal right to commit crime?

Question

"The number of crimes committed by girls in England and Wales has gone up by 25% in three years". The figures "confirm a continuing long-term trend of increasing criminality among girls" http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7401826.stm

Although the majority of crimes by 10-17 year olds is still committed by boys, girls are catching up. How much do you think that girls' anti-social behaviour is due to being liberated from the shackles of traditional feminine behaviour?

Answer 1

More like girls suffering from absent fathers.

Answer 2

None. No evidence for this.  Here is what the Government of Canada has to say on the subject:

"Some researchers suggest that the increase [in the number of charges laid against offenders]  can be partly explained by the stricter approach to schoolyard fights and bullying in recent years, which has led educators, parents and police to label as “assaults” behaviours once viewed as

unfortunate or “bad,” but not criminal.9

Conduct Disorder

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV),25 to be diagnosed with conduct disorder a young person must have committed at least three violations in four categories of aggression (aggression toward people and animals, aggression toward property, deceit/theft and serious violations of rules) in the previous 12 months, the latest within the previous 6 months.26 Girls who frequently use aggression and violence may be diagnosed as “conduct disordered”. These girls display a pattern of repetitive behaviours that involve violating the rights of others and other socially destructive behaviours.27 Only a qualified DSM-IV-trained practitioner can make a diagnosis of conduct disorder, which represents an underlying dysfunction within the individual and is distinct from behaviours that reflect reactions to social or contextual situations.28 Being labelled with a mental disorder represents a permanent condition and may not allow a girl to change or develop new behaviours. Therefore, labelling should be taken very seriously by anyone working with children and youth, and used only after careful consideration of its appropriateness and impact.29 Some research suggests that biological, genetic and medical factors are related to the occurrence of conduct disorder in some children.30 Environmental factors such as family, education and peer relationships also influence the development and maintenance of conduct disorder. Conduct disorder is not “oppositional disorder.” Girls with oppositional disorder display patterns of negative, hostile and defiant behaviour, but their behaviours do not involve violating the rights of others.

Why Do Girls Engage in Aggression and Violence?

Some researchers think that girls resort to aggression and violence for different reasons than boys. No single factor can predict aggressive and violent behaviour.31 The factors that contribute to the risk of aggressive and violent behaviour among girls include both systemic (family, community and social context) and individual (personal) variables.32 Usually, many factors act in combination.

Family Dynamics and Parental Relationships

Evidence suggests that aggressive and violent behaviour in children is linked to family and social factors, such as social and financial deprivation; harsh and inconsistent parenting; parents’ marital problems; family violence, whether between parents, by parents toward children or between siblings; poor parental mental health; physical and sexual abuse; and alcoholism, drug dependency or other substance misuse by parents or other family members.33 In addition, many aggressive and violent girls have poorly developed connections to their mothers.34,35

School Difficulties

Girls who experience difficulties at school, like social rejection by peers and low connectedness to school, are often more likely to be absent and to drop out eventually. These girls are also more likely to use aggression and violence.36-39 Problems at home and learning disabilities are also interconnected with difficulties at school.

Gender Issues

Aggressive and violent girls often see male control and domination over females as normal. They may hold views similar to those that support male violence towards females in that they tend to believe girls and women have less value and importance than boys and men. Aggressive and violent girls tend to attack other girls who are perceived as competing with them for male attention, and they tend to maintain social connections with peers who are perceived as helping them win in that competition.40

Boredom and Attention-seeking Behaviour

Girls who engage in relational aggression and bullying suggest that they often do so to alleviate boredom, by creating excitement, finding out gossip, seeking attention/importance41 and seeking validation from a group that excludes others.42

Connections to Delinquent Peers

Girls are more likely than boys to be rejected by their peers for engaging in outward (overt and direct) aggression and violence.43 However, gang membership can appeal to girls when they are seeking to escape economically disadvantaged homes, improve their self-esteem, increase their feelings of belonging, or seek revenge and protection.44 Association with delinquent peers increases girls’ opportunities to engage in aggressive and violent behaviours.

Experiences with Abuse

Aggressive and violent girls often report having been victimized by others.45 These girls are more likely than non-violent girls and both violent and non-violent boys to have been attacked while going to or from school, physically abused at home, sexually abused or coerced into sexual relations.46 In their relationships with adults, aggressive and violent girls have often learned that relationships involve one person dominating and abusing another.47

Drug Involvement

The abuse of alcohol and drugs contributes to aggression and violence in both adolescent girls and boys.48 However, chronic use of drugs seems to be especially strongly related to girls’ ongoing participation in violence.49

Atypical Physiological Responses

Girls who externalize (openly show) aggression and anger very often have family histories that involved repeated exposure to negative events during which they could neither fight nor flee (e.g. being abused as a child or being exposed to the abuse of a parent and/or sibling).50 As a result, these girls tend to be less responsive than other girls when exposed to threatening or stressful situations. They tend not to avoid situations that others would deem risky or dangerous and so are more likely to become involved with violence.51

Personality Factors and Mental Illness

Although conduct disorder occurs in only 2% of the female youth population,52 close to 90% of aggressive and violent girls are given a diagnosis of conduct disorder, and 31% have a diagnosis of major depression.53,54 Aggressive and violent girls are also known to suffer from anxiety and attachment disorders (difficulties creating and sustaining affectionate social and personal bonds).55 With the onset of puberty, girls are typically three times as likely as boys to suffer from depression due to low self-esteem, negative body image, feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, and stress.56 If they are also exposed to abuse or neglect at home, they are at increased risk of becoming involved with violence."57

Answer 3

Sadly, they;re being all the bad stereotypes of men (drunk, disorderly and violent). They used to diss men for decades about how we were so drunk, disorderly and violent. This is (yet another) embarrassment for feminism.

Girls exercising their right to commit crime? More like girls who grew up without a father:

http://www.photius.com/feminocracy/facts...

http://shatterdmen.com/Fathers%20who%20n...

Or girls who knew they'd get light sentences at worst and an aquittal at best for serial killing.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/w*p...

http://www.ifeminists.com/introduction/e...

You always have PMS and Battered Woman Syndrome to support you. Andrea Yates and Mary Winkler are perfect examples.

Sadly, freedom for women has gone too far. They've become the very men they had so much fun teasing and bashing for being drunk, disorderly and violent.

Answer 4

Partly but I feel the break down of the family unit and the abuse of badly written laws to keep fathers as wallets only has contibuted more.

Answer 5

I agree with Cassius.