Family Power Struggles After Release

Abstract

This chapter examines the girls’ family control struggles after release. The question of what happens after release is particularly interesting for this population. They are young, and they were youths whom the court and intake staff deemed most likely to benefit from a rehabilitative treatment program. However, the girls are basically released with no support systems to assist them in coping with the multiple stressors of their environments and lives. Being released is highly unstructured without anyone other than their already overburdened probation officers to facilitate reentry. All of the girls desire to improve their behaviors after they are released; however, this is a difficult task given the circumstances to which they return. The data suggest that those instances in which the girls fare best during post-release are those in which family conflicts over authority have been modified in some form. These modifications occurred when the parent, the daughter, or both make compromises with respect to parental authority.