Criers, Liars, And Manipulators: Article Analysis

Females are notoriously overlooked and misinterpreted in the criminal legal world, from being overly promiscuous in how they showcase their body, and learning through what they see. The article “Criers, Liars, and Manipulators: Probation Officers Views of Girls”, allows a new vantage point into the criminal legal system emphasizing how female juvenile offenders, victims, and their families are regarded through the eyes of the courts of the criminal legal system (Gaarder, Rodriguez & Zatz, 2004). Using different methods and research over similar topics in the criminal justice field, Gaarder et al. emphasizes the restraints and describes how it all began with a preconceived notion from social constructs. The findings of this research article

class, family), problems (sexually active, or runaway) and how the court system handles the different priorities that these females bring into the legal process. In Gaarder et al. (2004) they found, while researching, how much social construct: class can influence the perceptions of juvenile court personnel who “use class based standards to make disposition recommendations” and how this construct could possibly be related to the “disconnect” of these perceptions. The authors describe the predetermined behaviors that society has based as “acceptable” for females that if probationer’s do not necessarily follow these rules they may be characterized as manipulative or “hard to work with” (Gaarder et al., 2004). Given the scarce resources offered throughout the criminal justice system for treatment, the research focuses on the treatment options available, and any specific resources that the probation officers are trained to examine these different topics proposed in the research of the perception of females in the criminal justice

First, the gap between the perceptions of the girls by court officials and probation officers. Common findings in the girls probation files included fabricated reports of abuse, acting promiscuously, whining too much, and attempting to manipulate the court system (Gaarder et al., 2004). Secondly, the disconnected perception of the girl’s family; some of the probation officers went as far to describe the mothers as “sluts” (Gaarder et al.,