[A Literature Review of Black and Ethnic Minority Adolescent Females in the Youth Justice System]

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Abstract

The last two centuries or so have seen the progressive rationalisation and bureaucratisation of criminal justice and penal processes. From localised, community-based systems of policing and punishment there have developed huge state-managed apparatuses, and vast bodies of laws, rules and regulations, aimed at controlling crime. This paper examines the concept, the effects and the shifting landscape of criminal justice system, looking at the developing functions, purposes (avowed and implied) and techniques that have developed in response to changing perceptions of the problem of crime and social order. The paper focuses primarily upon the UK and Wales partly because these are the jurisdictions of which, histories of crime and control have been most extensively documented, but also because it is argued that they are, in different ways perhaps, at the forefront of the changes sweeping the penal systems of a great number of late modern societies.

A Literature Review of Black and Ethnic Minority Adolescent Females in the Youth Justice System

Introduction

Despite the fact that counseling psychologists have long included social contextual (meso- and macro-level) factors in our conceptualisations of individual difficulties, our models of intervention nevertheless have remained at the micro-level of analysis (Nair, 2008, 61). These micro-level interventions, although tremendously important, do not address directly the systems, structures, ideologies, and policies from which individual difficulties often originate (Morison, 2007, 65). Ultimately, change in these systemic (meso and macro) levels is necessary if we hope to be successful in our work with individuals, not to mention in our promotion of social justice more generally.

It is believed that, by and large, counseling psychologists already have the training, theoretical grounding, and skills necessary to have a greater impact on these levels. What the field lacks, however, are concrete examples of how counseling psychologists might meaningfully apply their skills to nontraditional contexts and efforts at systemic change. We need to begin conversations in which we share these types of examples, both to cultivate a collective sense of how to create and navigate research and intervention efforts that move beyond the individual level of analysis, as well as to provide forums in which to discuss and learn from each others' successes and failures.

Literature Review

Female Inmates

Females represent the fastest-growing incarcerated population, with a rate faster than that of their male counterparts. This needs special attention because, even with a greater rate of growth, this is an area in which female offenders have perhaps remained the most invisible. Despite the greater rate of growth, there are still fewer female inmates than men; they are often incarcerated for less serious offenses; and they are rarely associated with violence in prison, rioting, or other assaultive behaviour. There are, however, important gender-specific issues that female offenders face while in prison (Monaghan, 2007, 44).

In early jails and prisons, female, male, and youthful offenders were placed in the same institutions without regard to safety, exploitation, or other issues of vulnerability. As the theory of penology changed, so did the ...