The recent past has seen a sharp upsurge in the number and cases of female delinquency. Historically, while girls have constituted a meager percentage in the overall juvenile population, this narrative is fast changing as offending by young girls is rising incessantly. Many young girls are increasingly being put behind bars and subscribed to the federal juvenile justice system, although overall juvenile delinquency has decreased nationally. Notably, girls are typically different from boys. As obvious as this statement sounds, it is not resonated in the juvenile justice system, as there is an apparent inequality in the treatment of young female offenders. Extensive studies carried out by various researchers, as will be discussed herein, manifest that the juvenile justice system is vastly marred with gender bias and unfair treatment especially amongst young female offenders.
Many factors can be used to critically review the levels and extent of unequal treatment of young offenders on the basis of their gender. According to a research article by NCBI, unfair treatment in the juvenile system is depicted across all points, spanning from the arrest, trial, and even disposition (Bright, Kohl, & Johnson-Reid, 2014) . In the a rticle, the authors averred that the current juvenile system is structured in a manner that it pulls girls in, as opposed to using the available off-ramps and mechanisms to divert them to better and more appropriate interventions.
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Noteworthy, girls are not essentially treated in the same manner as boys, particularly for lesser offenses. This consequently results in an apparent disparity between young women and men with respect to detention for minor offenses. According to statistics by MST services, 37% of girls are locked up for offenses such as curfew violations, truancy, drinking, and substance abuse, while only 20% of boys were arrested and incarcerated for the same offenses (Cohen, 2015) . When it comes to offenses such as simple assaults alongside violating certain public orders or crimes without any victims, females, account for 23% while males stand at only 12%, thus depicting a whopping 11% percent gap. Therefore, inconsistencies and imbalances in the percentages of detained young offenders for the same offenses committed manifest unfair treatment in the juvenile system based on gender affiliations. The disparities also show that it is more likely for a young girl to be arrested and detained for a particular offense as compared to a fellow boy charged with the same offense.
Apart from unequal detainment for committing status offenses, girls are also unfairly treated even in the conditions of their confinement. As such, the conditions of confinement for young girls in their detention centers, secure correctional facilities, and residential treatment has been of great concern to many activists (Schaefer, 2008) . The juvenile justice system sends many young females to out-of-home confinement and placement, even without exploring adequately to whom and what they are sending these girls to. In this regard, various cardinal factors that underscore unfair treatment arise.
When young girls are put behind bars, they do not receive the sufficient help they require in order to get proper rehabilitation and do well when released. According to research, given the degree of young females detained for petty crimes and offenses, the lengths of stay in placement facilities are utterly troubling. 25% of the incarcerated females remain behind bars longer than a month, while 11% remain in juvenile centers even after 60 days, thus further exemplifying the unequal treatment in the juvenile system (Cohen, 2015) .
The challenges young women are subjected to while in detainment cannot go unnoticed. Both boys and girls placed under juvenile centers in the US are usually subjected to cruel punishments, brutal physical force, overcrowding, and other challenges coupled with inadequate health care, low staff levels, as well as limited health counseling and educational programs. Thus, the rising number of young women in juvenile faces the additional setbacks and burden of getting into a system that is primarily tailored for the male populace (Miazad, 2002) . Detention facilities for female populations, nonetheless, require unique programs and treatment, especially considering girl’s needs and backgrounds are relatively different from those of young boys. S eparation by gender in programming and housing is thus a critical area of concern. Boys and girls are still housed together in many residential service programs across the country allegedly for cost-effectiveness, thus putting girls in an unsafe position. For instance, under this arrangement, many cases of girl harassment, romantic relationships resulting in pregnancies, and many others arise. The system thus has rather flimsy regulations to ensure the protection of young girls from abuse in juvenile institutions, and this hence amounts to unfair treatment (Schaefer, 2008) .
The current judicial system is also faulted for criminalizing and heftily punishing girls for behaviors that result from environments they cannot control. A fair majority of young women in juvenile correctional centers are victims of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. This subsequently breeds trauma, and the system has since not sufficiently strived to understand, address, and further offer meaningful and purposeful programming or support mechanisms for girls’ abuse matters, specifically sexual abuse. Such situations compel girls to become aggressive and overly defensive, which is why juvenile justice stakeholders and professionals need to understand this critical concept, and refrain from judging girls’ behavior harshly, engage in supremacy contests with girls, and even punish certain behaviors that girls learn as they attempt to adapt to prevailing extreme circumstances (Barnickol, 2000) .
Conclusively, the subject of unequal and unfair treatment of young female offenders in the juvenile justice system is worth candid discussion, as the current system has some loopholes that compromise equal rehabilitation programs. Therefore, drastic gender-responsive reforms and reviews in the juvenile system must be incorporated to ensure equal and fair treatment between both genders. The reforms include decriminalizing minor offenses commonly charged to young girls like verbal disruptions, reducing system involvements, especially for misdemeanors, ensuring proper protection against female harassment, and investing largely on evidence-based programs and practices for girls.
References
Barnickol, L. (2000). The Disparate Treatment of Males and Females within the Juvenile Justice System . Washington University Journal of Law and Policy , 432-438.
Bright, C., Kohl, P., & Johnson-Reid, M. (2014). Females in the Juvenile Justice System: Who Are They and How Do They Fare? National Centre for Biotechnology Information Journal , 106-125 .
Cohen, L. (2015). The Juvenile Justice System . MST Services .
Miazad, O. (2002). The Gender Gap: Treatment of Girls in the U.S. American University Washington College of Law , 10.
Schaefer, P. (2008). Girls in the Juvenile Justice System . GPSOLO .
