Girls and Violence: Is the Gender Gap Closing

摘要

In order to understand the renewed focus on girls' violence, it is important to review the crime trends that drew media attention to youth violence in general. In fact, although the U.S. had experienced relatively stable crime rates from the early 1980s to the mid 1990s, violent crime rates for juveniles soared during this period. By the mid-nineties, the grim statistics regarding adolescent violence gained national attention. Among the more sobering statistics was an approximately 70% increase in youth arrest rates for violent offenses and a nearly 300% growth in youth homicide arrest rates from 1983 to 1994. Soon the attention of the media was drawn to what some were calling an epidemic of youth violence.