Even as the number of females processed through juvenile
courts climbs steadily, an implicit consensus remains among
scholars in criminal justice that male adolescents define delinquency (1)______
problem in the United States. We suggest two reasons that this (2)______
view persists. First, female adolescents are accused primarily of
victimless crime, such as truancy, that do not involve clear-cut (3)______
damage of persons or property. If committed by adults, these (4)______
actions are not even considered prosecutable; if committed
by juvenile males, they have traditionally been looked over leniently (5)______
by the courts. Thus, ironically, the plight of female delinquencies (6)______
receives little scrutiny because they are accused of committing
relatively minor offenses. Secondly, the courts have long justified (7)______
so-called preventive intervention into the lives of young females
viewed as antisocial with the rationale women are especially (8)______
vulnerable. Traditional stereotypes of women for the weaker and (9)______
more independent sex have led to earlier intervention and longer (10)______
periods of misdirected supervision for female delinquents than
for males.