Date of Award

12-2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Degree Discipline

Juvenile Justice

Abstract

Little to no academic inquiry has examined interventions targeting girls involved in the justice system in Jamaica. This qualitative study asked: (1) How do girls in conflict with the law in Jamaica experience victimization? (2) How does the justice system respond to girl offenders who have also been victims? (3) What are the needs of girls in conflict with the law in Jamaica? (4) What programs exist specifically for girls in conflict with the law? (5) How effective have existing programs been for girls in conflict with the law, and do outcomes vary across education levels and settings (i.e., rural vs. urban)? (6) What recommendations can be made to improve the effectiveness of programming for girls in conflict with the law based on the factors related to variability in the outcome? The findings are from in-depth interviews with juvenile justice practitioners and former girls of the justice system recruited via purposive and snowball sampling. Data were manually coded, organized, and analyzed to discover concepts, themes, and patterns. The results indicated that the existing programming needs to be revised because they are not

an ideal match to the needs of the girls. Despite the girls’ expressed interest in change, their limited responsiveness to current programming underscores the urgency of adapting interventions to better align with their unique circumstances and requirements. Furthermore, mental health services must be more available, relevant, and readily offered, along with effective reintegration assistance. The results present a case for gender-focused delinquency prevention efforts and policies that guide the administration of juvenile justice in Jamaica.

Keywords: Jamaican girls, programming, female delinquency prevention, reintegration, feminism, victim-offender overlap, Jamaica, qualitative methods, thematic analysis

Committee Chair/Advisor

Camille Gibson

Committee Member

Nabil Ouassini

Committee Member

Temilola Salami

Committee Member

Robin Jackson

Publisher

Prairie View A&M University

Rights

© 2021 Prairie View A & M University

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Date of Digitization

6/24/2024

Contributing Institution

John B Coleman Library

City of Publication

Prairie View

MIME Type

Application/PDF

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