At the dawn of the twenty-first century, panic about girls- offending in Britain reached fever pitch. No longer sugar and spice, a -new breed- of girl, the hedonistic, violent, binge-drinking -ladette-, was reported to have emerged. At the same time, the number of young women entering the youth justice system, including youth custody, increased dramatically.
Offending Girls challenges simplistic and demonising popular representations of ''bad'' girls and examines what exactly is new about the -new- offending girl. In the light of enormous social and cultural changes affecting girls- lives, and expectations of them, since previous British research in this area, the book investigates whether popular stereotypes problematising female youthful behaviour resonate with the accounts of criminalised young women themselves, and to what extent they have infiltrated professional youth justice discourse.
Through the lens of original detailed qualitative research
