Authors : 1Bob Regoli and 2John Hewitt
Abstract: Western criminologists have studied the causes of delinquency for well over 100 years. They have developed many theories to explain and predict why and when children commit crime. Typically these theories focus on males because male law violating exceeds that of females in both frequency and seriousness. But it also reflects something about the discipline of criminology, which has been dominated by men. In addition, the vast majority of people who create laws, who prosecute and defend offenders and who administer the juvenile corrections systems have been and still are men. In this paper our goal is to open a conversation about female delinquency. Toward this end our goal is to expose readers to a larger number of female delinquency theories so they will be better able to think critically about the topic.
1Bob Regoli and 2John Hewitt , 2003. How Western Criminologists Explain Female Delinquency: A Historical and Contemporary Review. Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences, 1: 234-243.