Since 1992, girls’ share of delinquency cases resulting in detention (the most common form of confinement for girls) has increased, often for charges such as prostitution, simple assault, or status offenses.* For a host of reasons—paternalistic juvenile courts and a lack of community-based, culturally competent, and gender-responsive services among them—diversion away from these systems has been underutilized with girls. These are mostly girls of color (a disproportionately high percentage of girls are Black and/or Latina), and many of them (by some estimates 40 percent) identify as lesbian,
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