FEMALE DELINQUENCY IN GHANA WEST AFRICA: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

To ascertain the relative effects of family, schools, and peer associates upon females delinquency within the urban context of Accra, Ghana, West Africa, 67 female delinquents with 74 female non-delinquents and 107 male delinquents were compared in terms of their (1) modes of living arrangements, (2) extent and reasons for shifts to other families and custodians, (3) amount of formal schooling, (4) attitudes towards school as ascertained by degrees of truancy and school aspirations, (5) the competing influences of parents and street associates upon their orientations and behavior, and (6) the collective or solitary form of their deviant behavior. The female delinquents tend to develop in more disorganized family situations, have less formal schooling, are more prone to truancy than the other groups investigated. As compared with male delinquents, the female subjects were less grouporiented and less organized in the Pursuit of their deviant activities and goals. Thus female delinquency in Ghana manifests similar as well as diverse social characteristics to their counterparts in the United States. The similarities provide the theoretical bases for cross-cultural generalizations concerning this form of behavioral pathology The impact of urbanization tends to disorganize the family in the lower strata and to undo parental control. The school seems unable to accommodate the children's needs and interests. By alienating the children from the educational process, coupled with parent-child conflict and mild-to-severe estrangement, the institutional resources for conformity to the complex urban milieu become minimal. Thrust into a marginal social position, the youths seek and become responsive to the influence of street associates who direct them into thievery and/ or prostitution.