Dr Donna Swift told a group of Dunedin youth and social workers yesterday the number of violent offences committed by girls aged under 17 in New Zealand had nearly doubled between 1996 and 2008.
She has toured New Zealand for the past two years raising awareness about girls' violence and antisocial behaviour, although her talk at the Dunedin Mercure Hotel yesterday was her first in the city.
Last year, girls accounted for nearly 30% of teenage arrests, compared with less than 20% in 1997, Dr Swift said.
Teenage girls often used covert violence and aggression - for example insulting others by labelling them "slut" and "ho" in group text messages sent to hundreds of others.
Compared with boys, girls were more likely to be aggressive towards others and violent towards family members.
Media such as films and television had compounded violence among girls, as they tried to balance the desire to be attractive while also being seen as tough and mean, copying the latest female action hero.
"Girls are finding fighting is a way to attract attention," she said.
Unlike boys, girls had not learned to fight fairly, so their aggression could boil over into acts of physical violence or bullying tactics.
Violent girls were also often caught up in a cycle of violence at home, or were the victim of some kind of trauma or multiple traumas.
Because of the different way girls became violent, people dealing with violent girls should approach them differently from the way they approached boys, Dr Swift said.
Programmes and services needed to be designed for girls, responsive to girls' needs and organised around a girl's history, if the cycle of violence was to be broken.
Society should care about helping violent girls, because they entered abusive relationships and perpetuated the violence cycle, were vulnerable to other risky behaviours like taking drugs, and could become more violent as adults.
"These girls are our future mothers."
Awareness of the need to focus specifically on working with violent girls was growing, but it was still a battle to get funding for programmes, she said.
Offence stats
• The most common violent offence committed by girls under 17 in the Southern Police District last year was minor assault (just under 100 assaults recorded).
• The next most common offences were serious assault and intimidation and threats (about 30 incidents of both).
• A small number of grievous assaults and robberies were recorded.
- Source: NZ Police
