Drawing on government data and interdisciplinary expertise, this timely book seeks to explain why the changing economic and legal status of women has not reduced the gender gap in criminal offending.
• Quotations from women offenders that explain their actions and situate them in life-history trajectories associated with criminal behavior
• Biographies of key theorists and researchers, prominent women offenders, and advocates for gender and justice
• Uniform Crime Report and Bureau of Justice statistics on girls' and womens' offending relative to men
• Primary source documents on legislation impacting women's offending and victimization
• A chronology of women's offending and legislation from the Colonial era to the present
• A glossary of key criminal justice terms that apply to women offenders
• An interdisciplinary bibliography of reference works, monographs, journal articles, Internet sites, and streaming/DVD resources