I propose the gender gap in delinquency is linked to adolescents’ orientation to gender-normative behavior and empathic development. I use longitudinal data on 1,525 youth from the Denver Youth Survey to analyze relationships among gender, empathy, and delinquency. I find girls exhibit higher levels of empathy across adolescence than do boys, and these differences emerge in preadolescence. Empathy is inversely related to delinquency, and is predictive of fraud and theft, but not violent delinquency. Finally, empathy partially mediates the effect of being male on delinquency. I therefore argue the gender gap in delinquency can be explained—in part—by adherence to gender norms governing empathetic expression.

Although recent scholarship has enumerated many individual-level consequences of criminal legal citations and sentences involving fines and fees, we know surprisingly little about the structural consequences of monetary sanctions or legal financial obligations (LFOs). We use social disorganization and critical race theories to examine neighborhood-level associations between and among LFO sentence amounts, poverty, and racial and ethnic demographics. Using longitudinal data from the Washington State Administrative Office of the Courts, and the American Community Survey, we find LFOs are more burdensome in high-poverty communities and of color, and that per-capita rates of LFOs sentenced are associated with increased future poverty rates across all neighborhoods.

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