CONFRONTING THE GHOST OF CROUSE,MARY-ANN - GENDER BIAS IN THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM

A recent report out of San Francisco noted that while women and girls are the fastest growing segment of the juvenile justice population in that city, they ''are all but invisible in terms of programs and stati stics'' (Schaffner et al., 1996:1). Apparently not much has changed in San Francisco since a 1992 study concluded that, after a survey of 15 4 service providers, the needs of young women in the juvenile justice system are ''unexamined, untreated, and invalidated by both the system charged with serving them and by their own community and family suppo rt structures (Delinquency Prevention Commission, 1992:3). This same r eport further noted that: ''These institutions fail to develop a diver sity of placement options for girls, to encourage and contract with co mmunity-based programs targeting the needs of girls, even to collect i nformation on who the girls are, what they need, and what worked to me et such needs'' (Ibid., p. 8).