And the winner is
| DOI | 10.1177/0264550508095835 |
| Author | Lol Burke |
| Published date | 01 September 2008 |
| Date | 01 September 2008 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
And the winner is . . .
The number of crimes committed by girls aged between 10 and 17 in England
and Wales increased by 25 per cent from 2003 to 2007 (Youth Justice Board
for England and Wales, 2008). According to the study, the most common crimes
committed by girls were theft, violent attacks, criminal damage and public order
offences. The reasons for the rise in reported crimes committed by this group are
unclear, but it would seem that changes in police practices in terms of their willing-
ness to take action against girls accused of less serious crimes such as school fights,
coupled with shifting social attitudes leading to a lowering of tolerance towards
minor offences, have had an impact in bringing more girls into the youth justice
system. There was a two per cent reduction in crimes committed by boys over the
same period, although it is still the case that girls commit far less crime than boys
and given the low numbers involved, any changes, increases or decreases, are
likely to have a significant impact in terms of the percentage of recorded crime
for this group. While the statistics reveal a complex picture of modern juvenile
female crime, it is becoming increasingly clear that alienation, problematic drug
and alcohol use, disruptive family backgrounds, abuse and poor schooling are
experiences shared by both sexes. It is somewhat fitting therefore that Susan
Batchelor’s article ‘Prove me the bam!: Victimization and agency in the lives of
young women who commit violent offences’ (Batchelor, 2005) has been chosen
as the inaugural best article published in the Probation Journal over the past five
years. In her review of the article, Pat Carlen (Editor-in-Chief, The British Journal
of Criminology and Visiting Professor at Kent University) provided the following
valedictory remarks:
In recent years there has been some debate as to whether or not women’s interests
are best served when they are portrayed as victims of crime, poverty – or whatever.
However, the debate has usually been couched in the rather positivistic terms of
the ‘accuracy’ of women’s representation by criminologists, i.e. whether the
women are really victims or whether they can resist victimhood. This article moves
the debate on by indicating that women can be both victims of crime and agents
who resist victim status. The author very carefully argues that the adoption of
discourses of resistance to further victimization (real or imagined) not only sustains
227
Probation Journal
The Journal of Community and Criminal Justice
Copyright © 2008 NAPO Vol 55(3): 227–230
DOI: 10.1177/0264550508095835
www.napo.org.uk
http://prb.sagepub.com
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