The Female Offender: Girls, Women and Crime - Tapa blanda

In an engaging style, authors Meda Chesney-Lind and Lisa Pasko explore gender and cultural factors in women’s lives that often precede criminal behavior and address the question of whether female offenders are more violent today than in the past. The authors provide a revealing look at how public discomfort with the idea of women as criminals significantly impacts the treatment received by this offender population.

The result is a book that will be an enlightening and thought-provoking read for academics, researchers and students not just in the areas of criminology and criminal justice but in more general sociology and women's studies as well.

She received the Bruce Smith, Sr. Award "for outstanding contributions to Criminal Justice" from the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences in April, 2001. She was named a fellow of the American Society of Criminology in 1996 and has also received the Herbert Block Award for service to the society and the profession from the American Society of Criminology. She has also received the Donald Cressey Award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency for "outstanding contributions to the field of criminology," the Founders award of the Western Society of Criminology for "significant improvement of the quality of justice," and the University of Hawaii Board of Regent's Medal for "Excellence in Research."

Chesney-Lind is an outspoken advocate for girls and women, particularly those who find their way into the criminal justice system. Her work on the problem of sexism in the treatment of girls in the juvenile justice system was partially responsible for the recent national attention devoted to services to girls in that system. More recently, she has worked hard to call attention to the soaring rate of women's imprisonment and the need to vigorously seek alternatives to women's incarceration.

In Hawaii, Chesney-Lind has served as Principal Investigator of a long standing project on Hawaii's youth gang problem funded by the State of Hawaii Office of Youth Services. She has more recently also received funding to conduct research on the unique problems of girl's at risk of becoming delinquent from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Finally, she has also recently been tapped by the Hawaii Department of Public Safety to serve on an advisory panel on the problems of women in prison in Hawaii.