Examines how social institutions exert social control over girls and women by creating, recreating, and transmitting cultural norms, values, beliefs, and practices. Reveals how these cultural components shape women's and girls' lives historically, medically, socially, and politically. Highlights intersectionality and women and girls in the criminal-legal system. Probes various ethical issues, including differential application of rules and regulations, victimization, sentencing guidelines, school-to-prison pipeline, mass incarceration, capital punishment, political disenfranchisement, and medicalization of women's and girls' bodies.