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9 Hastings Women's L.J. 1 (1998)
Female Juvenile Delinquency: Sexual Solutions, Gender Bias, and Juvenile Justice

handle is hein.journals/haswo9 and id is 7 raw text is: Female Juvenile Delinquency: Sexual Solutions, Gender Bias, and Juvenile Justice Laurie Schaffner* The beginning of delinquency in girls is usually an impulse to get amusement, adventure, pretty clothes, favorable notice, distinction, freedom in the larger world which presents so many allurements and comparisons. The cases which I have examined (about three thousand) show that sexual passion does not play an important role, for the girls have usually become wild before the develop- ment of sexual desire, and their casual sexual relations do not usually awaken sexual feeling. Their sex is used as a condition for the realization of other wishes. It is their capital.' INTRODUCTION Maria Gutierrez,2 a fifteen-year-old Chicana student, sat in a Northern California juvenile detention facility awaiting a disposition hearing on her case. She was charged with violating California Penal Code Section 288(a): lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 years of age. In this case, the victim was her younger brother. Maria Gutierrez had an idea of how she came to commit her crime. Her file included a letter she wrote *B.A. Smith College; M.A. University of California at Berkeley; Ph.D. candidate, SocioI- ogy Department, University of California at Berkeley. I would like to gratefully acknowl- edge editors Eugenio Cruz and Maureen Burke for their encouragement and advice and the second-year cite checkers Leslie Kuykendall, Lisa Culbertson, Troye Shaffer, Adam Arms, and Kathleen Millican for their excellent work. I wish to extend my heartfelt appreciation to my professors and colleagues for on-going comments and support: Leslie Acoca, Chey- enne Bell, Elizabeth Bernstein, Sandy Bonilla, Janet Clinger, Kelly Dedel, Troy Duster, Kelly Evans, Arlie Hochschild, Norma Hotaling, Betty Houston, Anna Korteweg, Cary Lit- tell, Kristin Luker, David Matza, David Minkus, Pedro Noguera, Jackie Orr, Julie Posadas, Lucinda Ramberg, Will Roundtree, William Schaffner, Nancy Stein, and Jan Zimmerman. My deep gratitude goes to the members of the For Girls Coalition, the workers in the legal and psychiatric systems who grant access and share their ideas and experiences, and I am especially grateful to the girls who allowed me to spend time with them. This article is published with assistance from the Abigail Reynolds Hodgen Publication Fund. 1. WILLIAM ISAAC THOMAS, THE UNADJUSTED GIRL 109 (Benjamin Nelson ed., 1967) (1923). 2. The names and identifying details about participants, their life stories, and on-going cases have been altered to protect their confidentiality. HASTINGS WOMEN'S LAW JOURNAL

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