The juvenile justice system must begin to embrace and address the problems facing teenage girls. In Georgia girls receive harsher treatment than boys for benign criminal and noncriminal behavior in the juvenile justice system. In the juvenile justice system in Georgia girls are more likely than boys to be institutionalized for status offenses such as running away from home, being ungovernable or truant. More boys are detained for criminal offenses. The Georgia juvenile justice system lacks alternatives for individual placement and treatment after adjudication.
Specialized programs serving the special needs of girls are virtually nonexistent.
The court system in Georgia must provide a range of options as alternatives to unnecessary detention of our children of both sexes. Boys and girls are treated differently in Georgia's juvenile justice system primarily because of societal attitudes based on outdated sexual stereotypes. Greater attention to the enormous problem of child physical, mental, emotional and sexual abuse would give greater protection to children of both sexes and could prevent future runaways and status offenders. State funding is needed for special programs to address the problems of female status offenders. State funding is needed to provide residential and other treatment facilities for female status offenders.