perhaps because girls are forced to internalize their problems & aggression, once they're put somewhere like that, it all comes out at once...so to speak. which isnt to say girls should be taught to be more physically/harmfully aggressive, just that girls shouldnt be taught to internalize everything...cuz clearly it has negative consequences.

I can think of a number of possible factors (all wild and irresponsible speculation, of course):

1. The conditions that girls face in juvenile detention centers might be worse than those faced by boys, leading to increased aggression.
2. Bias in the court system against incarcerating girls might lead to only the most aggressive girls being put into detention centers.
3. As Leslie suggests, that girls are taught to internalize their aggression means that, when they finally do reach a breaking point, they express that aggression in a more pronounced fashion.
4. The girls might be expressing aggression in response to threats or hostility, or as a reaction to some kind of physical/sexual assaults.

I'd be interested to see more in depth analysis of the study, for sure.

perhaps because girls are forced to internalize their problems & aggression, once they're put somewhere like that, it all comes out at once...so to speak. which isnt to say girls should be taught to be more physically/harmfully aggressive, just that girls shouldnt be taught to internalize everything...cuz clearly it has negative consequences.

A longer article can be found here. Doesn't say much more though. Apparently their study wasn't about finding explanations for the disparity.

I don't really think there needs to be any theory on this- if a girl wound up in the legal system, odds are she did something to get there. And if she's breaking the law, it's pretty much assumed she'll be more aggressive than those that are law-abiding. Why is this? Good question. Whatever it is, it's probably the same reason why so many men are in legal system- poor upbringing, lack of education, mental issues, even testosterone levels, the list goes on and on.

It's an interesting thing to read, yes, but at a time when we have 1,445,115 men and 111,403 women in prisons, I think we should focus more on the *people* in prison rather than the women in the prison, seeing as even the article admitted that they face very similar issues.

I don't really think there needs to be any theory on this- if a girl wound up in the legal system, odds are she did something to get there. And if she's breaking the law, it's pretty much assumed she'll be more aggressive than those that are law-abiding. Why is this? Good question. Whatever it is, it's probably the same reason why so many men are in legal system- poor upbringing, lack of education, mental issues, even testosterone levels, the list goes on and on.

I'm not sure if I agree with this. Are you implying that the rest of us who aren't in prison are law-abiding and non-aggressive? I don't think that everyone in prison deserves to be there. Richer people can just afford better lawyers. (Not to mention that judges may have their own personal biases against certain groups of people.)

Men and women do face similar issues while in prison, but society treats men and women differently based on their perceived gender. I don't see how gender is totally irrelevant.

It may also be possible that behaviors that are seen as borderline or even non-aggressive in males are described as aggressive when exhibited by females (cf. "assertive" vs. "bitchy").

I work in a high school, and generally our teachers, principals, security guards, and police officers agree that fights between girls are worse than fights between boys. The girls are harder to break up because they get so involved in the fight. When ordered to stop, they don't seem to even hear the teachers. When adults interfere, they continue punching. (I can't remember if last year we had more fights between girls or more between boys - anecdotally speaking, I think they were about equal. And no, we don't have fights every day, but we do have them.)

I would say that many of the students - boys and girls - at our school do not "internalize" their problems. If they have a problem with someone/something, they're usually quite vocal about it, and often believe that fighting is the best resolution to conflict.

The study compared kids in juvenile detention centers to kids who were not in the system, and so I'm not convinced the most significant difference is necessarily between boys and girls. Since their difference in aggression once they're in a facility is definitely interesting, I think that looking at how girls who wind up in such facilities deal with conflict compared to those who don't would be more useful data. I realize that people who work in the juvenile criminal system need to understand it, but as a teacher, I'm much more interested in keeping them out of such places.

MissKatie:
It seems to me that I've read/heard (or maybe just thought up at some point, I don't know) that since aggressiveness is considered a "male" trait, when boys fight it's more often than not mainly about posturing and proving who's more of a "man" (Ok, boys, it's cheek-swab time. Let's see whose Y Chromosome is bigger...), whereas when girls fight (going back to all those previous comments about breaking points), the fights really are a lot more serious, because it's really about something and not just machismo.

Also, it's worth noting that in our society female violence is fetishized to the point of just total wierd. How much time is wasted on the "news" with videos, replayed over and over and over, of girls in nasty, knock-down-drag-out fights? And the whole time A.) the people watching, including the one with the camera, are doing nothing to stop it, and B.) half an hour of "commentary" on "oooh, look how violent these girls who are supposed to be innocent and playing with barbies are."

In a sick way, maybe the girls that get caught up in the criminal (in)"justice" system are actually healthier than the average female adolescent!

ALL teenagers are angry, but at least teenage boys get to act that anger out, normally, teenage girls are expected to internalize that anger, and it turns into depression and self-hatred.

But, maybe being in a situation where they've been massively vicitimized by an outside force - that is, the police and the judicial system - makes these girls realize (in a distorted way) that maybe THEY aren't the problem.

It's sad that it takes something as grotesque as being locked up in jail to get teenage girls to act out on their natural anger and agression, rather than swallowing it.

That's a sad commentary on our society.

alexmlwallace, you ask the legitimate question as to why America has 1,445,115 men and 111,403 women in prisons.

To put that in perspective - the worldwide prison population is only 8 million.

And America, while having 5% of the world population, has 20% of the world's prisoners.

Unfortunately, your answer to that question "...poor upbringing, lack of education, mental issues, even testosterone levels" basically blames the victims.

And has an unspoken, but very real, anti Black racist subtext (considering that half the folks in prison in this country are African American).

The REAL reason that America has so many folks behind bars is PUBLIC POLICY.

In other words - the federal and state governments deal with many social problems - in particular unemployment - by putting people behind bars.

Most folks in jail are locked up for victimless crimes - in particular, selling drugs.

Basically, they couldn't get a regular job, because America doesn't have enough good jobs to go around - )and the good jobs we do have tend to go disproportionately to White Americans).

So, they end up on the corner as retail drug dealers.

And, from time to time, local police departments do street sweeps, and the low level dealers get sent into the system.

Here in New York City, the police keep poor people in check with "quality of life" arrests - that is, locking up folks for "crimes" like BEGGING.

New York City arrests 230,000 people a year - mostly Black or Latino and mostly poor - for those so called "quality of life crimes"

I've written about this outrage in greater detail HERE:

http://gangbox.wordpress.com/2007/04/30/uncivil-service-municipal-forced-labor-in-new-york-city/

Specifically with teenage girls, there has been a tendency for inner city school districts to deal with disciplinary problems by calling in the cops.

New York City's Department of Education handed over school security to the NYPD a few years ago.

Astonishinly enough, when monitoring the halls was taken away from educators and school employees and put in the hands of cops, arrests soared.

Especially since the NYPD took over school hallways at the same historical moment that the department imposed mandatory arrest quotas (one arrest per month) on all of it's police officers.

So, problems that used to be settled by taking kids to the dean's office and calling his/her parents are now "solved" by dragging the kid down to the precinct and filing criminal charges.

To summarize, the problem isn't the folks being railroaded - the problem is the system.

alexmlwallace, you ask the legitimate question as to why America has 1,445,115 men and 111,403 women in prisons.

To put that in perspective - the worldwide prison population is only 8 million.

And America, while having 5% of the world population, has 20% of the world's prisoners.

Unfortunately, your answer to that question "...poor upbringing, lack of education, mental issues, even testosterone levels" basically blames the victims.

And has an unspoken, but very real, anti Black racist subtext (considering that half the folks in prison in this country are African American).

The REAL reason that America has so many folks behind bars is PUBLIC POLICY.

In other words - the federal and state governments deal with many social problems - in particular unemployment - by putting people behind bars.

Most folks in jail are locked up for victimless crimes - in particular, selling drugs.

Basically, they couldn't get a regular job, because America doesn't have enough good jobs to go around - )and the good jobs we do have tend to go disproportionately to White Americans).

So, they end up on the corner as retail drug dealers.

And, from time to time, local police departments do street sweeps, and the low level dealers get sent into the system.

Here in New York City, the police keep poor people in check with "quality of life" arrests - that is, locking up folks for "crimes" like BEGGING.

New York City arrests 230,000 people a year - mostly Black or Latino and mostly poor - for those so called "quality of life crimes"

I've written about this outrage in greater detail HERE:

http://gangbox.wordpress.com/2007/04/30/uncivil-service-municipal-forced-labor-in-new-york-city/

Specifically with teenage girls, there has been a tendency for inner city school districts to deal with disciplinary problems by calling in the cops.

New York City's Department of Education handed over school security to the NYPD a few years ago.

Astonishinly enough, when monitoring the halls was taken away from educators and school employees and put in the hands of cops, arrests soared.

Especially since the NYPD took over school hallways at the same historical moment that the department imposed mandatory arrest quotas (one arrest per month) on all of it's police officers.

So, problems that used to be settled by taking kids to the dean's office and calling his/her parents are now "solved" by dragging the kid down to the precinct and filing criminal charges.

To summarize, the problem isn't the folks being railroaded - the problem is the system.

A year ago, a book by Cristina Rathbone that discusses women in prison was posted on this site by Samhita. A quote from that book was: "But certainly not a place where women were attacking each other or threatening each other, the way so often happens in men prisons."

I disagreed with that quote back then. The study in the post at the top appears to disagree with that quote as well. Is this a sign of the apocolypse?

"... it's probably the same reason why so many men are in legal system- poor upbringing, lack of education, mental issues, even testosterone levels ..."

People are in the legal system because they commit crimes. If poor upbringing got people in to the legal system, then the local police force would be making sweeps through the local trailer parks and locking up everyone caught living there.

Gregory, I have an issue with you calling drug dealing a victimless crime. With all of the violent and gang related stuff that happens around drugs, there are plenty of victims.

I used to work as a Correctional Officer and I always found it interesting that the female juvenile inmates seemed to release their aggression the worst on other female inmates; not Officers, not teachers, not other male inmates. I realize that being in jail doesn't always bring out the best in anyone, and it would make sense that one would fight with who is closest, however the females and males were mixed most of the day in class.

"even testosterone levels,"

Nope, this one is false. Testosterone levels increase after a violent act, but high levels of testosterone have no effect on people who are not violent.

It says that the girls are more likely to be aggressive than the boys, but it doesn't mention if the level of aggression or violence are at the same level of the boys'.

I have an issue with you calling drug dealing a victimless crime. With all of the violent and gang related stuff that happens around drugs, there are plenty of victims.

Drug dealing, in and of itself, is victimless. Murdering someone 'cause they stole your turf is not.
Saying drug dealing is not victimless because drug dealers often get involved in gangs is like saying pot smoking isn't victimless because what if you drive while high and kill someone? It's the driving while high that's dangerous, not smoking pot and staying put. If you follow this logic, drinking alcohol is a crime because sometimes people drive drunk.

I was incarcerated for four years in juvenile detention centers, and I think it screwed me up good. i can't eat at a restaurant without my back to a wall, and whenever I have to confront someone about anything i shake really bad and feel sick. I always expect them to get violent. i think i am definitely more aggressive.

Dave - back when alcohol was illegal (Prohibition - 1918 to 1933) boogleggers (illegal alcohol dealers) were murdering people all of the time.

The biggest bootlegging gang in the country was actually CALLED MURDER INCORPORATED!!!!

But, guess what?

The minute alcohol was legalized, the killings stopped.

Amazingly enough, some of the biggest bootleggers became respectable pillars of the business community - like the Bronfmans and the Kennedys.

Yes, THOSE Kennedys - overnight they went from hoodlums to the political first family of Massachussets and the closest thing America has to a royal family.

And, if narcotics were legalized tomorrow, you'd see the same phenominon.

Narcotics trafficking is first and foremost a BUSINESS - the only reason they shoot each other is because they cannot settle their business disputes legally.

For instance, if Anheuser Busch and SAB Miller have a dispute over who should be distributing beer at 7 11 stores in the Tri State area, they just call the lawyers and, worst case scenario, they might have to go to court.

They don't have to shoot each other because beer is legal.

By contrast, if two cocaine distributors have a dispute over who's going to control street sales in the Western Bronx, they can't get an injunction, or file a lawsuit - they have to resort to the threat of violence, or in far too many cases to actual violence.

If drugs were legal, they wouldn't have to do that.

Gregory, I really don't understand what point you are trying to make in comparing drug dealing to alcohol bootlegging. Many of the people that were involved with bootlegging back then were some pretty nasty people and deserved to be punished for the crimes they committed. In my opinion, the same should apply to drug dealers.

The criminal element will always go to where they can make money. There are currently major gangs that are involved in making money off cigarettes. They skip the step were taxes are collected and keep the difference.

The drugs that are currently illegal should stay illegal. They are so addictive and destructive that they can't even be compared to alcohol and tobacco.

"... they have to resort to the threat of violence, or in far too many cases to actual violence."

Are you implying that there is no choice? There is always a choice when it comes to personal conduct. Saying that there is no choice is justifying bad behavior.

SarahMC, drinking alcohol does not associate with an industry that is rampant with personal and community destruction. Illegal drug dealing does.

The drug trade has so much evil surrounding it that a person can't absolve themselves from blame by saying that they are just a middleman in the business and therefore committing victimless crimes. I will give a few examples. A person's body and/or mind can be permanently damaged from drug use. Families fall apart because of drug addiction. Innocent people are forced to be "mules" for drug trafficing. Law enforcement corrupted by Mexican drug cartels have gotten into huge shooting matches with legitimate law enforcement. Entire towns on the Mexico side of the border with the USA are controlled by drug cartels. There are towns in the USA that are going downhill rapidly because of widespread crystal meth use.

I can understand your viewpoint that if you isolate just the drug dealing, there may be no victims. But, that activity is facilitating many other crimes with a plethora of victims. Facilitation of a crime is a crime.