Early juvenile courts emphasized a child’s “best interests” and treated youths differently based on personal characteristics such as race and gender. Progressive reformers expected judges to handle boys and girls differently because their circumstances and needs differed. Juvenile courts processed boys primarily for criminal behavior and girls for noncriminal status offenses—e.g. runaway, incorrigibility, or sexual precocity. In the 1970s, efforts to deinstitutionalize status offenders led to substantial declines in the numbers of girls detained and confined for noncriminal misconduct. More recently, juvenile justice officials and the public perceived an increase in violent crimes like simple assault committed by girls. This, in turn, led policy makers and scholars to reexamine changing patterns of offending and the role of gender in the juvenile justice system.
An important but seldom studied aspect of justice administration is police interrogation of suspects. In the vast majority of cases, the real trial occurs during police questioning. Once a suspect confesses, the advantage tilts strongly to the State and often leads to guilty pleas. Despite its crucial role, legal scholars and criminologists have conducted remarkably little research on how police question adult criminal suspects. They have conducted even fewer studies on how police question juvenile suspects. Researchers have not conducted any studies on whether or how police question juvenile girls differently than juvenile boys. Are there genders differences in how youths waive Miranda or in how police treat youths in interrogation? Do police question, and do boys and girls respond differently in the interrogation room? How do justice system personnel perceive girls in the interrogation room, and do those perceptions affect police practices? This Article presents quantitative and qualitative data to answers these questions.
