Girl Gangs and the Female Crime Wave in America

Starting in the 1980s, reports of female involvement in gangs, drug sales, and violence began to surface as a serious problem in America. To support claims of increased female delinquency, reporters and scholars often cite crime statistics or anecdotes from field studies. The reasons they give to explain this female crime wave generally fall into one of two categories: drugs as a means for economic success the idea that the increased availability of crack cocaine provides economic means to poverty-ridden women suffering from the effects of urbanization and deindustrializationand social movements the idea that female “liberation” has hit the streets.

Statistics on female crime and gang involvement may leave the public with little reason to question claims of converging levels of delinquency between males and females. In the 1980s and 1990s, studies revealed that 20 to 46 percent of all gang members were female and that up to 20 percent of urban females were in a gang (Esbensen and Deschenes 799; Miller 2). Similarly, the American Bar Association was cited in the Tulsa World newspaper with claims that between 1990 and 1999, drug charges against girls increased 200 percent, assault charges increased 100 percent, and aggravated assault charges increased more than 50 percent, while the percentage of charges for males decreased (Ryan).

In general, the news media call much attention to the rising female delinquent as an increasingly autonomous being who commits criminal acts without the help of males. The Boston Phoenix reports, “Now, many fear, more young women are adopting the rituals of gang life,” while an article in the Christian Science Monitor claims that female gang involvement is now a “documented problem.” The article in...

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... “Are American Girls Becoming More Violent?” The Tulsa World. 9 Sept. 2003: A13.

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