This Brief fills a gap in criminological literature, as there are few empirically-based studies on delinquency of adolescent girls. It provides results of a longitudinal study, The Pittsburgh Girls Study (PGS), which includes 2,451 girls, followed annually from age 10-19, the ages when criminal behavior tends to emerge. This study provides the most extensive and comprehensive investigation into the criminal offending and self-reported trajectories of offending of PGS participants, along with an in-depth examination of other criminal career dimensions.In five chapters, this short volume reviews the limited extent of girls' delinquency literature, presents data on girls' offending patterns (onset, persistence, specialization, and desistence), provides insights on gender differences by comparison with the Pittsburgh Youth Study, which focused on male offenders, and explores the theoretical and practical implications of the results.

Chapter 1: Introduction to female vs. male criminal careers.- Chapter 2: The Pittsburgh girls study and the prevalence of self-reported delinquency.- Chapter 3: Frequency, persistence/continuity, onset, desistance, career duration, recidivism, and chronic offending.- Chapter 4: Trajectories of offending.- Chapter 5: Gender differences: comparisons with boys in the Pittsburgh youth study.- Chapter 6: Conclusions.- Appendix.