Edited by Meda Chesney-Lind and Lisa Pasko, Girls, Women, and Crime: Selected Readings is a compilation of journal articles on the female offender written by leading researchers in the field of criminology and women’s studies. The individual sections in the book survey four major areas: theories of female criminality, literature on female juvenile delinquents, women as offenders, and women in prison.

The readings in Girls, Women, and Crime focus on two central questions: How does gender matter in crime and the justice system? What characterizes women’s and girls’ pathway to crime? In answering these key queries, the contributors reveal the complex worlds females in the criminal justice system must often negotiate—worlds that are frequently riddled with violence, victimization, discrimination, and economic marginalization.

Features and Benefits:

• The articles are written by some of the leading scholars in the field of criminology.
• Section introductions, written by the book’s coeditors, introduce the relevance and range of the topical areas covered in the sections and provide a context for the articles themselves.
• This anthology evaluates female juvenile delinquency, an important topic often receiving minimal attention in books on women and crime.

Girls, Women, and Crime can be used as a stand-alone text or as an excellent supplement to Meda Chesney-Lind and Lisa Pasko’s The Female Offender, Second Edition (2003). This dynamic reader is recommended for academics, researchers, and students in sociology, women’s studies, criminology, and criminal justice.