Paperbacks in the 50s were marketed primarily to men, hence the many lurid covers. Delinquent girls were certainly outside the 50s mainstream and thus seen as exotic and sexy. Many of the JD books depicted the girl hangers-on as free and available, sexually liberated (and/or exploited) before their time. Girl Gangs were multiples of a good thing and mostly fantasies - but what fantasies! Publishers took advantage and this sub-genre is highly collectible and sought after. Here are a few of them:

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		Gang Girl is a Midwood PBO written by Julie Ellis under her Joan Ellis pseudonym with cover art by Paul Rader. This book has it all, the title, the well known writer of JD and lesbian Midwoods and the great Rader cover. You can see a whole page of Rader's work by clicking on Here.
		This Gang Girl is a PBO written by Robert Silverberg under his Don Elliott pseudonym and comes from Nightstand Books, a small publisher of sleazy books in Milwaukee. Unlike the Avon above, a mainstream book, the smaller publishers were more exploitative. These were also the books sold under the counter or in Cigar Shops and not well distributed. They are very difficult to find today.
		While many of the Juvie covers show the girls as submissive or sexy, Teen-Age Terror and Zip Gun Angles above, are very violent. These all catered to men's fantasies about sexy, submissive but dangerous girls. This cover is by James Meese who later painted fine art. Some paperback artists were unabashedly so, but most had different ambitions. It's ironic that it is the paperback art that most of them will be remembered for.
		This is one of those phony 'non-fiction' sociological studies from the Monarch Books 'Human Behavior' series. It allowed the publisher to write titillating smut about 'girls gone wrong' under the guise of case-histories.
		Zip Gun Angels is another extremely difficult book to find. It again comes from a small publisher and is in the digest sized format. Zip Guns were the worst things delinquents could have as they were supposedly easily made from car radio antennas and fired .22 caliber bullets. Note that there are no guns in the image. The book was re-published the same year with the same cover but different title. This was common practice with publishers hoping readers would not recognize it even though the previous title is mentioned on the cover - in very small print.

Here are a few more:

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