Rural Girls in Conflict with the Law: A Review of the North American Literature and Recommendations for Future Empirical Work
Abstract
Less than a handful of researchers have examined rural girls’ pathways to crime. Most of the extant literature on youth in conflict with the law, in fact, centers on socially and economically marginalized urban boys, which sidelines the experiences of girls residing in rural and remote communities characterized by patriarchal norms, values, and beliefs. The main objective of this article is to describe the current state of social scientific knowledge about North American rural girls’ criminal conduct and to suggest new empirical directions in understanding this problem.
Keywords: girls, crime, social control, geographic variations
How to Cite:
DeKeseredy, W. S. & Selman, D., (2026) “Rural Girls in Conflict with the Law: A Review of the North American Literature and Recommendations for Future Empirical Work”, International Journal of Rural Criminology 10(1), 93-109. doi: https://doi.org/10.18061/ijrc.6259
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