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At-Risk Girls and Delinquency

Through fieldwork and in-depth interviews examining the careers of adolescent girls in the juvenile justice system, this article reveals some of the interaction processes by which challenges to parental authority may facilitate contact, entry, and movement through the system. Parents or guardians act as informal agents of control until a breakdown in family solidarity prompts appeal to more formal measures of control. These findings suggest the continuing significance of status offenses in the arrest and incarceration of girls. The 1974 Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act restrained courts from responding vigorously to status-type offenses. This article illustrates how families, in their interactions with authorities, have negotiated alternative methods for dealing with troublesome teenage girls.