The Jesse Ball DuPont Fund has awarded $500,000 to the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) of Oakland, Calif., to develop a national center to provide training and information about the best ways to deal with girls in the juvenile justice system.
The new center, which will be based in Jacksonville, Fla., stems from a decade of research by the NCCD about the needs of girls in the Florida system. As part of the research, NCCD developed gender-specific tools and practices for dealing with girls.
“Girls and women have strikingly different pathways than men toward involvement in the justice system, and significantly different needs and issues in custody and on probation or parole,” said Barry Krisberg, president of NCCD. Among girls’ gender-specific issues are dealing with risky behavior, relationships, dating violence, substance abuse, trauma and victimization, communication, pregnancy and parenting. (See Research of Note.)
