For more black girls, a violent cycle

When "Nikki" got beat up by a gang of angry girls after school, she joined one set of statistics: Young Black women are twice as likely as young white women to be victims of violence.

But Nikki decided she'd never be an easy mark again. The Brooklyn teen learned to fight, and fight hard - in school, after school, and when she skipped school, which she started doing often after the attack.

The result: Nikki ended up in the juvenile-justice system and joined another set of statistics. Young black women are picked up by police at three times the rate of young white women.

"It's a cycle of violence and we see it everywhere," says Isis Sapp-Grant, the founder of the Youth Empowerment Mission in New York and a former gang member. "We're not really addressing it on the level we need to."

The striking increase over the last decade in the rates at which young African-American women are both victims of violence and involved in the criminal-justice system is setting off alarms, spurring research, and drawing attention to the cultural needs of young black girls. Many live in neighborhoods where guns, gangs, and drugs are common. And many come from families with at least one relative in jail, making prison terms more of a norm than a social rarity.

But between the budget crisis and a surge in young women of all races being caught in the juvenile justice system - they're now almost 25 percent - enthusiasm for culturally sensitive programs has diminished. Some experts say there just aren't enough resources to help girls of any race, let alone young black women.

But some researchers, such as Monique Morris of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, argue that unless society addresses these young women's needs, the cycle will only spiral - taking thousands of girls with it. "I certainly think we're facing a challenge, but it's ... very doable, with the right commitment," says Ms. Morris. "We have to build a spirit of resistance in these girls. We have to get them and their families to accept their value."

Morris has analyzed criminal-justice and census data and come up with some startling findings.

• The rate at which black girls were charged with property offenses soared by 92 percent from 1985 to 1994, compared with a 38 percent rise for girls overall.

• The number of delinquency cases involving young black women increased by 106 percent between 1988 and 1997, compared with an increase of 83 percent for all girls.

• Black children are nine times as likely as white children to have a parent in jail.

Researchers have long tied involvement in the criminal-justice system to early abuse and victimization. Girls, Inc., a national nonprofit advocacy group, has also tracked the violence that young women experience in their daily lives. And minority women suffer disproportionately more violence than their white counterparts.

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