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Juvenile Delinquency

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Juvenile delinquency is the habitual committing of criminal acts or offenses by a young person, especially one below the age at which ordinary criminal prosecution is possible. Up until recently juvenile delinquency only accounted for males. However, girls are now the fastest growing segment of the juvenile justice system, even though the rates of juvenile offending are declining. Due to the increase of the female juvenile population, some female juveniles are being held in adult prisons. Because the rates of female offending has been on the rise, there has been an increase in the likelihood that a teen would be arrested while she is pregnant. There are approximately 24,000 pregnant teens arrested a year, which is 670 on a given day. The chances of a girl being arrested while she is pregnant is somewhat high due to the fact that about 85% of girls that are detained are sexually active and fewer than 50% of them use some form of protection. Because the amount of female juveniles being detained are increasing and the juvenile justice system was geared more towards the male population, there are several resources that are lacking especially for pregnant teens and teen mothers. In the novel Inside This Place, Not of It by Ayelet Waldman and Robin Levi, the narrative on Olivia Hamilton, though she may not be a teen, provides a great example of the lack of services available to pregnant inmates and mothers. Olivia Hamilton was arrested for embezzling money to pay her bills. At

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