Focus on the Family

Abstract

Interviews with 27 girls and the professionals who worked with them yielded retrospective accounts of court interventions into families. Contradicting prior criticisms, for the setting and sample, girls were not confined to control sexual activity or as punishment for crimes committed after they ran from abusive families. Intervention problems included holding girls responsible for fighting with physically abusive caretakers, and electronically forced presence in homes with destructive caretakers. Family counseling benefitted girls with troubled families. Independent living benefited those with intractably destructive families. The research generated contemporary local information about broad criticisms leveled against juvenile courts’ responses to girls.

Keywords

girls qualitative research juvenile justice juvenile delinquency female delinquency

The research described in this article documents how a juvenile court responds to girls charged with delinquency or status offenses and to their parents or parent substitutes (i.e., caretakers), and it investigates the outcomes of these responses. The article contributes to feminist pathways theory, which highlights both the gender-related experiences that lead girls into offending and the effects of justice system responses on future offending and entanglement with the justice system (Belknap, 2007; Daly, 1992; Owen, 1998). Within the feminist framework, juvenile court responses to girls have been much criticized for ignoring that some caretakers precipitate offending through abuse and extreme neglect, and for backing parental authority instead of supporting girls who cope with destructive family members. This article considers the applicability of key prior criticisms of juvenile court interventions into the girls’ families in one contemporary court jurisdiction and from the perspective of the girls. Based on the girls’ detailed descriptions of their experiences, it also identifies two types of court responses to the girls and their caretakers previously ignored in the literature, specifically, confinement of girls to their homes and support of girls to permanently leave their caretakers.

Early on, feminist pathways theory drew attention to how girls’ victimization within their families caused a number of adverse consequences (e.g., depression, substance abuse; Chesney-Lind, 1997; Covington, 1998; Daly, 1992). Providing strong support for the theory, research in several parts of the United States empirically documents the severity of court-involved girls’ harm from families. For example, California girls who penetrated deeply into the juvenile justice system more often identified relationships with parents than problems with drugs, school, or boyfriends as the reason for breaking the law (Acoca & Dedel, 1998). They described frequent moves between relatives’ homes and child welfare and juvenile court placements, and in their families, neglect, sexual and other abuse, and violence exposure. In California, Colorado, and Massachusetts, girls in court described “empty” families with caretakers characterized by “divorce, overwork, substance dependence, incarceration, mental illness, ill health, homelessness, and death” (Schaffner, 2006, p. 87). Caretakers’ myriad difficulties prevented them from adequately caring for their children or themselves. Consistent with qualitative research results, quantitative measures of low parental support (e.g., Baumrind, 1966, 1996; Saner & Ellickson, 1996; Steinberg, Mounts, Lamborn, & Dornbusch, 1991) and limited monitoring are strong predictors of girls’ delinquency (Bottcher, 1995; Broidy, 1995; Cernkovich & Giordano, 1987).

Turning now to feminist consideration of the juvenile court’s responses to girls, in her seminal work, Chesney-Lind (1989) presented evidence of the criminalization of girls’ survival strategies when they ran away from home to escape sexual abuse. More broadly, because court responses have important negative influences on youths’ opportunities and repeat offending (Bernburg & Krohn, 2003; Lanctot, Cernkovich, & Giordano, 2007), though they may differ over time or between jurisdictions, they deserve continued study. Given the history of juvenile court intervention into girls’ families, the present article focuses on court responses to both girls and their families.

Juvenile courts have discretion to intervene in youthful offenders’ family life in at least three ways. First, following the doctrine of parens patriae that provided the historical foundation for the U.S. juvenile justice system, courts assume custody and place youth in residential settings and/or make decisions about the youth in place of parents. Second, courts buttress parental authority by requiring youth to live in their caretakers’ homes and follow adults’ rules, or else face removal or punishments. Third, consistent with rehabilitation ideals, juvenile court personnel refer or order youth and family members to participate in family-oriented therapy, counseling, and education designed to increase parenting skills and improve family dynamics. As part of the family rehabilitation approach, many juvenile courts assess family functioning, either informally or by using formal assessment tools. In some cases, courts combine approaches, for instance by placing youth outside of their homes but requiring them and their caretakers to participate in family therapy during and after placement. The juvenile court acts directly on youths’ relationships with their caretakers through judicial and probation officer discussions, directives, requirements, and referrals; it acts indirectly through placement in programs that have their own requirements and interventions.

One of the few studies on juvenile courts and families (Rodriguez, Smith, & Zatz, 2009) found that in a Southwestern jurisdiction, court personnel’s attributions of family dysfunction led to decisions to place youth outside of their homes. Rodriguez et al. (2009) assumed out-of-home placement was uniformly harmful for youth, and indeed, it may have been in the jurisdiction they studied. Confirming harmful consequences of placement, Belknap (2007) summarized considerable evidence of the restrictive stereotyping and victimization of girls in institutions for delinquents. However, Belknap and Holsinger (2006) also found that 19% of girls before the court in a Midwestern state preferred placement in institutions for delinquents to living at home. This finding suggests that, in some cases, placement provides relief from negative home environments where, for example, girls may be abused or neglected. Thus, some out-of-home placements may meet youth’s needs or at least protect youth from damaging families.

Because there is variation in juvenile court interventions over time and between state and local jurisdictions, it is important to study court practices within a local context. The present study focused on a Midwestern county juvenile court jurisdiction. The analysis presented in this article is from data from a larger study designed to generate broad understanding of girls’ experiences with the juvenile court, placements, and services (e.g., counseling), and the challenges they faced in their lives, for example, abuse and problems learning. As explained next, there are both long-standing and recent criticisms of certain forms of court intervention into girls’ relationships with their caretakers. The present article presents findings that show whether these criticisms apply to the local sample and context. It also presents the discovery of two forms of court intervention previously undocumented in the literature—support of parental authority through electronic “tethering” of girls to their homes and, at the other extreme, empowerment of girls to live independently. Because the study used girls’ retrospective accounts of juvenile court experience after they had aged out of juvenile status, it was possible to link what was often a series of court actions aimed at girls’ relations with the adults responsible for caring for them to outcomes at the point of transition to legal adulthood.

Criticisms of Juvenile Court Actions Aimed at Girls and Their Caretakers

Prior literature highlights four criticisms of juvenile court interventions into parent–child relations. The earliest U.S. juvenile courts were criticized for removing girls from their families and placing them in institutions for status offenses to control their sexuality (Chesney-Lind, 1973; Chesney-Lind & Shelden, 1997; Odem, 1995; Pasko, 2002; Schlossman & Cairns, 1994). Initially, courts removed girls from poor, immigrant families based on the assumption that parents could not adequately supervise their children (Feld, 1999; Platt, 1977). By the mid-20th century, attention shifted away from immigrants and toward courts’ disproportionate placement of racial and ethnic minority group girls in training schools to contain their sexual activity (Chesney-Lind, 1997; Chesney-Lind & Pasko, 2004; Datesman & Scarpitti, 1977).

Responding to the over-representation of minority youth in juvenile court and the inequity of confining status offending girls but not more serious male offenders, the U.S. 1974 Juvenile Justice and Prevention Act reduced out-of-home placement by prohibiting the secure confinement of status offenders. Although juvenile court personnel may no longer explicitly name girls’ morality as a reason for confinement, concerns remain that girls’ sexual activity provides the basis for secure placements for seemingly minor offenses. Studies of several jurisdictions have revealed that case files for girls, but not boys, routinely include notes about promiscuity (Baines & Adler, 1996; Belknap, Holsinger, & Dunn, 1997; Bond-Maupin, Maupin, & Leisenring, 2002). Moreover, some courts have diverted girls charged with status offenses to restrictive mental health and substance abuse treatment facilities to get around prohibitions against placing them in secure settings with delinquents (Costello & Worthington, 1981; Federle & Chesney-Lind, 1992; Kempf-Leonard & Sample, 2000).

A second wave of criticism highlighted a common sequence of girls running away from abusive homes, committing crimes to survive, and then being arrested and either placed in punitive institutions or back with the abusive family members (Arnold, 1990; Chesney-Lind, 1989; Chesney-Lind & Rodriguez, 1983). The National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (Sedlak et al., 2010; also see Finkelhor, 1994; Sedlak & Broadhurst, 1996) found that, according to the most stringent standard for determining harmful abuse, girls experienced sexual abuse by a parent, parent substitute, or adult caretaker at five times the rate as boys. Thus, it would not be surprising to find girls running from their families, and then becoming entangled in the juvenile justice system as offenders.

A third, more recent criticism of juvenile court responses to girls’ negative family dynamics centers on girls’ increased arrests for assaults against parents (Durose et al., 2005; Schaffner, 2006; Andersen, Morash, & Chesney-Lind, 2011). Acoca and colleagues (Acoca, 1999; Acoca & Dedel, 1998) documented a tendency toward “charging up” in which California girls in a mutual fight with a parent are arrested for assault. A Massachusetts-based study (Buzawa & Hotaling, 2006) revealed that compared with other family violence calls, even when parents assaulted the child first, a parent’s call to police about a child assailant had significantly higher odds of resulting in the alleged perpetrator’s arrest. In yet another study, Davis (2007) found that institutionalized girls’ caretakers had called police, and sometimes girls had been placed, because girls pushed past or struck parents in an effort to leave the home, again even if parents had physically punished them first. Based on national statistics and the available research, Chesney-Lind (2010) concluded that recent increases in girls’ detention and training school placement primarily result from arrests for family fighting. Before the passage of preferred and mandatory arrest of domestic violence laws, youth who fought with parents were typically charged with status offenses (e.g., ungovernability, person in need of supervision), not assault.

The fourth criticism of juvenile court responses to girls (and boys) and their caretakers is the court’s failure to use parent-oriented programs known to be effective. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention promotes the use of evidence-based programs (Mihalic, Irwin, Elliott, Fagan, & Hansen, 2001) that include family therapy, often combined with other supportive services, delivered while youth live with their families (Latimer, 2001; Schaeffer & Borduin, 2005) or with foster parents (Leve, Chamberlain, & Reid, 2005). Despite demonstrated effectiveness and ideological consistency with pressures to preserve families and use the least restrictive interventions with youth (e.g., Levesque & Tomkins, 1995), a comprehensive review showed that courts refer only 5% of high-risk offenders to family or any other empirically justified programs (Greenwood, 2004). This deficiency is greater for girls than for boys because fewer programs exist or are evaluated for them (Chesney-Lind, Morash, & Andersen, 2008), and gender (as well as racial and ethnic) stereotypes restrict girls’ options for services and treatment (Gaarder & Belknap, 2004). Moreover, many programs shown by research to be effective for girls require that families be intact enough to participate in key aspects of the intervention, for example, mother–daughter activities (Chesney-Lind et al., 2008), which would not be effective for families Schaffner (2006) describes as “empty” or that repeatedly traumatize girls. Criticisms of juvenile court responses to girls’ families and the many accounts of court-involved girls’ negative family environments guided our consideration of how one court responds to girls and their families, and of the effects of these responses.

Research Questions

This research explores the connection of juvenile court actions aimed at girls in trouble with the law and at their caretakers to girls’ outcomes as they transition into adulthood. Outcomes include engagement in work or school, and continued illegal behavior. One set of research questions concerns the degree to which previous criticisms of juvenile court interventions into girls’ families applied to the jurisdiction studied. Were court removals of girls from their families directed at controlling girls’ sexuality? Did the court criminalize survival strategies of girls running away from abusive families? Did the court punish girls for fighting back against caretakers in self-defense? Did the court appropriately intervene with caretakers who harmed girls? To allow for generation of new ideas, the analysis also addressed two other questions: Aside from previously criticized court practices, were there other ways that courts intervened in girls’ families, and what were the results?

Method

The Local Context

The research focused on a Michigan county juvenile court jurisdiction with a mix of medium and small cities and towns, suburban areas, and rural areas. Due in part to a 2002 state law allowing and encouraging the privatization of social services, Michigan has a highly decentralized set of many private and some public facilities for treatment and placement of status offenders and delinquent youth. Michigan’s Juvenile Code (712A.1) states that each juvenile before the court should,

. . . receive the care, guidance, and control, preferably in his or her own home, conducive to the juvenile’s welfare and the best interest of the state. If a juvenile is removed from the control of his or her parents, the juvenile shall be placed in care as nearly as possible equivalent to the care that should have been given to the juvenile by his or her parents.

The Family Division of the Circuit Court can place youth in out-of-state residential programs. Statewide, the law specifies the upper age limit for juveniles as 16 (Puzzanchera & Sickmund, 2008). Although state laws are relatively punitive in regard to the low upper age limit and in allowing life without parole for juveniles (Buck-Willison, Mears, Shollenberger, Owens, & Butts, 2009), a strong treatment orientation in placements and other interventions also is found.

Two local practices further characterized the juvenile court jurisdiction. The county’s aggressive policy of bringing truant youth to court resulted in several girls’ first contact being for truancy. Also, the court increased use of a commercial needs assessment tool to identify youth at risk and the primary risk factors to be addressed by intervention. Court personnel routinely assessed girls with the widely used Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI; Schmidt, Hoge, & Gomes, 2005). One section of this inventory assesses need for intervention into family dynamics. The person administering this inventory checks off (yes/no) and provides written comments about strengths and weaknesses for problems in the following areas: parental supervision, parent ability to control the child’s behavior, appropriateness of discipline, consistency in parenting, and the child’s relationships with both mother and father. Probation officers usually administer the instrument and are expected to update it every several months.

The Sample

Participant recruitment involved two strategies: (a) a census of girls who had resided in the county-based group home that was most commonly used for residential placement and (b) a maximum variation sample of girls with extensive juvenile court involvement who had not been placed in the group home. All girls were at least 17 years of age and according to state law were no longer juveniles. In the first step, group home staff provided contact information and introductions to all girls who had been in the program, even briefly. We completed interviews with 12 girls whose only placement was the group home and 5 girls who, after a period at the group home, spent time in at least one other residential program. One other former group home resident did not keep her appointment for an interview and later could not be located. To diversify beyond the group home sample, the second step involved using maximum variation sampling to select a heterogeneous sample of girls with considerable involvement in the jurisdiction’s juvenile justice system. This form of purposeful sampling involves selecting a wide range of cases so that most types of cases are included for inquiry (Creswell, 2007; Patton, 2002) and is especially useful for documenting common patterns across diverse circumstances (Patton, 2002). Thus, juvenile court personnel assisted in recruiting an additional 5 girls placed in other residential treatment programs, 3 who received extensive probation and counseling services, 1 who lived in a foster home, and 1 who attended a court-run school that provided very extensive services in addition to education. The courts referred 7 additional girls who declined participation or could not be located, resulting in a sample size of 27 (77% total response rate).

Interviews

Consistent with feminist research methods, interviewers elicited study participants’ detailed description of their circumstances and experiences, and the study was intended to produce knowledge that would improve the lives of young women by revealing juvenile court experiences that led to girls’ positive and negative outcomes (Chesney-Lind & Morash, 2011; Sprague, 2005). To reduce the social distance between study participants and researchers, three graduate students in their 20s recruited subjects and carried out interviews; they dressed and spoke informally and explicitly acknowledged the value of girls’ standpoint on the justice system. Participants chose the place for meetings (e.g., their homes, a library). Most interviews were split over two or three sessions to avoid excessively long periods of data collection and allow for trust and relationship building. Each girl received a US$20 gift card for participating in each of three parts of the interview, which occurred from September 2008 to May 2010. Study participants (ranging from age 17 to 19 years) provided written consent if they were age 18 or older. For study participants under 18, a parent or guardian provided written consent, and the study participant provided written assent.

Interviewers first asked study participants to remember and reconstruct events and aspects of their own life histories (Fetterman, 1998). Supporting the validity of this approach, Habermas and Bluck (2000; also see Ruspini, 2002) found that most adolescents are adept at assessing the causal ordering of important life events. To implement this method, each girl and interviewer constructed a life history calendar (Hanks & Carr, 2008; Roberts & Horney, 2010; Sutton, 2010), including ages for each place of residence, schools attended, jobs worked, arrests and court contacts, and other key life events that could increase recall of event timing (Freedman, Thornton, Camburn, Alwin, & Young-DeMarco, 1988; Krienert, 2003). Over the course of interviews, the calendar was rechecked and improved with responses to questions described next.

Interview questions relevant to the present analysis covered reasons for living apart from one or both parents, alternative living situations, and for each place lived, details such as stressful circumstances and support from adults.¹ Other questions were about periods when things were going particularly well or when life was a struggle, basic needs (e.g., shelter) were unmet, and girls self-harmed and experienced violence, death, or sexual abuse. To understand girls’ views of interventions, interviewers asked girls to explain whether and how programs and professionals helped them or failed to help them, met their needs, or ended before their needs were met. Interviewers also asked girls whether court personnel understood them and their circumstances, about the effects of court involvement, and to identify people who “cared,” had a positive influence, or gave skills and resources. Pertinent to why girls were in court as well as outcomes, some questions focused on school, work, drug and alcohol use, and illegal activity. Although the present article attends to interventions into girls’ family situations, the larger study considered the effects of court actions and programming on peer relations, abuse and trauma, and education.

To increase credibility of findings from the interviews, interviewers asked each girl for consent to ask the same questions of an adult professional who knew her well. Twenty-three girls gave consent, 21 professionals responded, 1 failed to return phone calls, and another refused on the basis of the need to protect confidentiality. The interviewed professionals worked as probation officers (4 juvenile, 1 adult), group home staff (13), and staff in other local programs (3; for example, shelters or transitional housing). In presenting findings, we signify the source of data from these interviews by attributing it to “the professional” or noting a “P” in parentheses after a quote. So readers can link comments by the same girl, or see variation in the girls quoted, we assigned girls numbers that are noted throughout the findings section. Audio-taped interviews were transcribed verbatim and read into NVIVO software for analysis. Content on the same theme but from different sources (i.e., the girl or the professional) was juxtaposed in the file to allow simultaneous examination. Often girls and professionals filled in gaps left by the other, or they validated information presented by the other person.

Analysis

The first step in the analysis was to identify all passages in the data that shed light on girls’ families, their offenses, the different ways that courts directly and through referrals intervened with families, and outcomes. Also identified were passages reflecting ties to school or employment because these are important outcomes in transitioning from adolescence to young adulthood. Information on these ties and illegal behavior (including substance use) at the time of the interview was coded to indicate an outcome: (a) no illegal activities, working or going to school; (b) no illegal activities, neither working nor going to school; (c) illegal activities, working or attending school; (d) illegal activities, not working or in school. Participation in any educational or training program counted as school.

The data on families were used to differentiate those with the most severe problems (similar to families Schaffner, 2006, described as “empty”), troubled families with some support or oversight of children but also with some dysfunction, and those lacking problems the literature identifies as relevant to girls’ delinquency. Girls’ and professionals’ descriptions of the behavior and charges that brought them to the attention of the court as well as acts that “could get them in trouble” were coded to reflect specific offenses, such as assault, truancy, and drug use. These codes were output as a quantitative file, which was analyzed to determine whether there were common patterns. All content on programmatic interventions into family life was examined, and types of interventions were coded; the most common were court requirements that the girl stay in the home, placement outside the home, family counseling or education, and counseling directed only at the girl (e.g., to stop her from assaulting family members).

To carry out the analysis, the first author repeatedly reviewed the data for recurring connections between interventions into families and outcomes. First, passages relevant to the unanticipated intervention, confinement to home, were studied to identify the degree of family problems preceding and the events following interventions. Second, the most common intervention, placement, was considered. For girls placed outside the home who had more positive outcomes, and then for those with negative outcomes, passages on family dynamics and on interventions were examined to shed light on how combinations of family dynamics and interventions promoted continuation of illegal activity or desistance from it, and how they affected ties or the lack thereof to school and work. Finally, analysis focused on the connections of interventions to outcomes for girls not placed outside the home.

Description of the Sample

Demographic Characteristics

Girls identified their race and ethnicity as White or Caucasian (13), Black or African American (6), multiracial (4), Hispanic (3), or Asian (1). Most families were poor or working class, but a few were headed by professionals and lived in well-to-do suburbs. Four girls were 11 or 12 years old at first court contact, 6 were 13 years old, 4 were 14 years old, 6 were 15 years old, and 4 were 16 years old. Data were missing for the other two girls. At the time of the interview, the girls ranged in age from 17 to 19 years. Five had children, and one other was expecting her first child.

The Girls’ Offenses

Over the course of the girls’ adolescence, status offenses and types of delinquency, listed from the most to the least common, were drug and alcohol use (21 girls); truancy (18); running away from home or, in a few cases, a placement (16); fighting (12); larceny/shoplifting (9); and domestic violence (7). Small numbers of girls described or were charged with breaking and entering (1), car theft or joy riding (2), curfew violations (3), delivery of an illegal substance (1), selling drugs (2), and prostitution (1). Many girls and professionals noted involvement in a combination of illegal activities, but there were no combinations shared by more than a few girls.

Most girls’ offenses were limited to minor crimes, status offenses, and fights with parents or peers. Four girls (#11, #6, #21, and #25) had more serious, repeated offenses; they had sold drugs, prostituted, committed felony theft, and/or committed robbery. Three of these girls with more serious offenses had run away and lived with boyfriends, with whom they jointly sold drugs and committed property offenses. The other girl’s (#21) illegal activity seemed to be a solo affair; she said she had been “fighting for years” and that she started selling drugs in the eighth grade, when she “needed money for my baby shit” after her daughter’s birth.

Family Life

Most study participants (24 or 88.9%) had families that exposed them to drugs or violence, lacked basic necessities (i.e., income, furniture, food), and/or provided little or no support or oversight. One girl described her drug-addicted mother, who brought her abusive, drug-dealing boyfriend to live in the home. Other girls had one parental figure who provided support, affection, food, and clothing some times, but who were inconsistently supportive because they had their own problems with incarceration, drug use, or mental illness. The sample included girls who were unwanted by any parent or stepparent, with one or more mentally ill parents, or with one or more parents absent due to death, abandonment, or incarceration. An examination of reports of specific traumas revealed that 10 girls had been “kicked out” of their homes, 9 girls reported neglect, 8 reported sexual abuse, 7 saw one parent assault another, 5 were physically abused by a parent, and 4 were abandoned by one or both parents.

Several girls coped with caretaker limitations by assuming responsibilities for a parent and/or siblings. One (#23) cared for her mentally ill mother and three younger siblings, “making sure everyone got to school” (P). Even though she was a runaway from her mother’s home, another girl (#3) returned to facilitate her father’s admission to “detox,” “dragging him” there when he neared the endpoint in a repeated cycle: being clean for a month or two, using marijuana and alcohol, adding cocaine, then only using heroin, “detox,” and rehabilitation. Another girl (#10) said she dropped out of school to get a job and help her mom “pay the bills” after her dad died. One (#24) left her mother because “[She was] always, always on medication and she smokes a lot of weed and she just spazzes out a lot, forgets things a lot, and just starts arguments all the time.” Before leaving, she “had to learn how to take care of her [mother], make her dinner, do her laundry, and like, be the mother of the household pretty much.”

Just two girls described families that consistently provided material and emotional support, protection from violence and drugs, and appropriate supervision. One (#7) had lived with her foster mother since before age 10; she answered questions about her mother and siblings by talking about her foster mother and her adult foster siblings. The other had a stressed family (e.g., overcrowded household, father a recovering alcoholic), but not an abusive or violent family. After she became addicted and was forced into prostitution, her father rescued her by repeatedly driving around the city until he found her on the street, brought her back home, and engaged the court’s assistance in getting her into a treatment-oriented training school. One girl (#1) told us about two families. Her foster family provided material and emotional support and supervision. However, she had lived for many years with her drug-addicted mother, who left her largely on her own and who exposed her to “hustling” on the streets to get by and to ongoing drug activity and violence in the home. She maintained contact with her mother and siblings, and alternated living on her own and with her foster family.

Findings About Girls’ Experience of Juvenile Court Responses

Analysis revealed six general connections between court actions relevant to girls’ families and girls’ outcomes. Court-ordered confinement to the caretaker’s residence (“house arrest”) tended to be either ineffective, in the sense that the girls did not stay in the homes, or to force girls to stay in destructive family environments. The courts typically responded to failed attempts at house arrest with additional programming or placement. Girls arrested as domestic violence perpetrators and treated by the juvenile court as fully responsible for fighting with a parent, and girls describing no interventions to address destructive families, described negative outcomes. Similarly, girls returning from out-of-state placements they found helpful, but who rejoined destructive families, often had negative outcomes. For girls whose families were more troubled than destructive, positive outcomes occurred if they were placed locally and experienced family interventions during their placement. Girls with highly destructive families had positive outcomes when they lived independently from their caretakers.

Court-Ordered Confinement to the Caretaker’s Residence

Exemplifying a form of court support of parental authority, at some point, court personnel restricted eight girls to their homes. The practice—which the girls called “house detention,” “house arrest,” or, because electronic monitoring devices were used, “tether,” forced girls’ constant presence and subjection to parental authority in the home. Two girls were placed in residential programs after tether failed to keep them home. Group home staff focused on helping the parents of one of them (#26) set limits, and she seemed to be doing well after she moved back with her mother. For the girl forced into prostitution (#25), ironically, strong, positive ties to her parents led her to not wanting to hurt them, and parental restrictions on drug use led her to break the order of “house arrest” to live with the older man who exploited her.

For most girls, restriction to the home failed because of neglect, violence, drug use, or general chaos in that home. The court’s lack of knowledge of the violence, drugs, and/or abuse in the home increased girls’ exposure to a damaging environment. For example, after an arrest for domestic violence against her mother, the court tethered a study participant (#14) to her mother’s home. The girl described ongoing mutual combat among herself, mother, and siblings. She explained that her mother “gets mad a lot” due to bipolar disorder. “She’s on a whole bunch of medicines, and sometimes she’ll get off her medicine, and it would make her act really crazy.” Eventually, the courts moved this girl to a foster home, and later to a program for pregnant girls.

The courts used tether for the girl (#19) with the most toxic family environment of any study participants. She expressed disgust that her 40-year-old drug-addicted mother lived with a 20-year-old, alcoholic boyfriend. She described him,

He’s been to AA meetings. He’s been on probation. He’s been on house arrest. He’s been on tether. He’s been through so much stuff. And he don’t beat my mom no more, but he, now he sells drugs. There are drugs around the house and that’s why I am never there.

The mother’s boyfriend previously abused and continued to threaten this girl and her two younger siblings. The girl explained the effect of tether: “Getting tethered” was the point when “things just started going downhill and then I just didn’t care, really.”

Some girls identified court-ordered confinement to damaging and stressful home environments as the trigger to run away. One of them (#3), who came to the court’s attention for truancy, said tether was “hard because my mom was like flipping out . . . she made sure the judge ordered that I couldn’t talk to any of my friends, even the good ones.” She went on to explain how being tethered and court-ordered not to talk to friends prompted her running away to live in another city, where she supported herself with restaurant work for several months: “So I was like completely cut off. My mom’s insane. I was on tether, so I was like going a little bit crazy.” The professional agreed the mother was overly controlling, and when nobody believed accounts of the mother’s behavior, the girl had “no choice” but to run away.

Once aware of negative family dynamics, court personnel often placed previously house-arrested girls in residential programs. However, some girls hid realities of family life because they feared placement of their children or siblings outside the home. The girl who stayed away from home as much as she could because her mother’s drug-dealing boyfriend had drugs all over the house (#19) hid what was going on at home. If she told, “it will be a CPS [Child Protective Services] case open for me,” which could result in lost custody of her baby. She also wanted to protect her younger siblings: “When I move out of my mom’s house, I plan on getting my little brother and sister out of that house. I am not leaving them with her.”

The nature of our sample precludes drawing conclusions about the proportion of times that requirements (often backed up by electronic equipment) to keep girls at home helped them or, alternatively, triggered their running away or forced them to stay in damaging relationships and dangerous, crime-ridden places. However, for the young women we interviewed, these efforts failed to have the intended effect and often had unintended negative effects.

Girls Arrested for Domestic Violence

Three girls convicted of domestic violence against their mothers began official adulthood with negative outcomes. The first (#20) was totally estranged from her parents. Although she worked and attended school, she regularly used marijuana to cope with her isolation. The second (#13) had a supportive foster mother, but had new charges for assaulting her sister. The third (#15) had just been charged as an adult for domestic violence against her mother, and she neither worked nor attended school. The court and the programs the girls attended appeared to address only the girls’ use of violence, and did not recognize, in one case, the use of violence in retaliation to being abused, and in the other two, parents’ and siblings’ “mutual combat” to resolve family differences (on mutual combat, see Johnson & Ferraro, 2000). Interventions directed at just the girls left them with continuing severe family problems that contributed to new instances of drug use or assaultive behavior.

We provide an example (#20) of how physical attacks between mother and daughter led to girls’ (but not mothers’) arrests for domestic violence, and just the girls being punished and “treated” for lacking self-control. Juvenile court and group home staff seemed to not realize the extent of abuse against this girl, nor to anticipate that at age 18, she would need the skills to manage completely on her own. The courts held her responsible for all violence in the home. However, in two different interviews, she gave detailed description of abuse by her mother. Her most detailed description follows:

I was leaving the house. She [mother] didn’t want me to leave the house. She asked me if it was a challenge. I said, “No, it’s not a challenge. I’m doing what I need to do.” She took up a long pole, hit me with it. I managed to get it from her, and I beat the shit out of her. And I do admit that it was the wrong thing, and I do admit that I did lose control over that. I do not ever want to be told that all the other times where she called [police] on stupid, stupid ordinary things . . . [incomplete thought]. Fighting over a French fry? She called over a French fry, because I grabbed a French fry, she grabbed my hand, and I slid back. She wouldn’t let go. I had grab marks on my wrist, and I slapped her. She called the cops on that. I had bruises! I had bruises, and I got taken to juvy [detention] for two months!

This study participant told the interviewer that her mother’s anger resulted from recently diagnosed “borderline bipolar.” The girl had finished school, was attending the local community college, and supporting herself working part-time at a fast food restaurant and selling plasma. After her mother packed all of her belongings and left them in the front yard, she rented a room in a shared house. She said she smoked a lot of “weed” to deal with anxiety over money: “It’s kind of like I’m replacing my support system with a drug, and I know that’s not a good thing. As of right now, that’s what I have. That’s all I have.”

For two reasons, we consider this girl’s account of two-way violence credible. First, the detail, frankness, emotion, and self-admission of beating her mother make it difficult to believe that she completely fabricated descriptions of her mother abusing her. Second, the literature provides much empirical evidence that adolescents are struck by parents more than they strike them, and when they do strike parents, in most cases their parents have been violent toward them (Browne & Hamilton, 1998; Pagani et al., 2004; Straus & Gelles, 1990). The interview provided no evidence that the girl’s account contradicted this pattern. Despite the girl’s (#20) mutual combat with her mother, the courts viewed her as solely responsible for the physical fighting, and focused interventions on controlling and punishing her, and reinforcing parental authority.

Another young woman (#13) held responsible for family violence described her childhood: “For 11 to 12 years of my life [before her parents separated], I have seen it [violence]. My dad abused my mom to the point where she was taken out in an ambulance and he almost killed her.” She said, as an adolescent, she frequently stayed at friends’ places, because her mother “has bipolar” and “she would be all happy one minute and then get like really mad . . . the next minute.” Physical fights between this girl and her mother led to her domestic violence charge and group home placement. Released to move back with her mother, she actually stayed with her boyfriend and his mother, though she still saw her family. Through an odd sequence of events, she ended up in foster care. After her boyfriend severely beat her, to protect him, she told his mother that her mother’s boyfriend had done the beating. The boyfriend’s mother reported the incident to Child Protection Services, and the girl came into foster care to protect her from recent abuse believed to have occurred in her natal family.

While living with her foster mother, this girl’s visit to her mother ended in herself and several family members physically fighting each other. She left the house, her relatives reported her for abandoning her child at their home, and she lost custody. When interviewed, this girl attended General Educational Development (GED) classes, had regular visits from her child, and was hoping to regain custody. However, she had a new pending charge for domestic violence against her sister. The early domestic violence charge did not appear to lead to effective interventions that either supported her (#13) avoidance of physical conflict in her natal family or that affected the family’s propensity to settle differences through physical fighting.

As a third example of girls charged with domestic violence, when interviewed at age 18, Participant 15 had just spent 2 weeks in the adult jail for a charge of domestic violence against her mother, and had violated a court order to stay away from the home where she and her mother lived, because she had no other place to live. She neither worked nor attended school. Juvenile charges included domestic violence against her mother, shoplifting, breaking and entering, and possession of marijuana. Juvenile court experiences included Teen Court, a college student mentor, and regular probation officer visits. Asked whether she was an abuse survivor, she answered,

Her being a single mother, I know she would get really angry at us, and I know she would pull our hair a lot. She would actually shake my head back and forth. I remember one time she straight-up smacked me across the face. I had a huge bruise. But, I wouldn’t classify her as an abusive mother, though. Definitely not.

The girl spoke at great length about current ongoing arguments with her mother and brother about her brother’s “gambling addiction,” her mother’s obesity as a response to stress, and her brother’s and her own past use of cutting to cope with stress. Her mother felt she and her brother cut themselves “to get back at her [the mother].” She said when she was depressed, her mother yelled “[you have] no reason to be sad.” Adding to the chaotic family life, when angry the brother would “punch holes in the wall.” Despite a needs assessment and resulting requirement that she obtain counseling, this girl’s quite detailed descriptions of her juvenile court experiences lacked references to interventions to counsel her family or help prepare her to leave the family.

Failure to Address Other Negative Family Dynamics

The data included examples of court failure to recognize and then intervene in women highly destructive caretaker actions against the girls that did not involve physical assault. As an example, Study Participant 16, who was unwanted and disliked by her parents, seemed not to receive needed intervention to address lack of parental support and supervision, and ended up on adult probation after she gave her prescription medication to a boy her age and was charged with distributing drugs. She began adolescence living with her unemployed mother and unemployed stepfather, whose extreme poverty made her “a burden to them financially” (P). According to the professional,

She doesn’t get her medication that she’s supposed to, both for the physical condition and for the ADHD issues and depression issues, that kind of thing. She has to beg, borrow, and steal, so to speak, to get a bus pass so she can get down here. She just has no one.

The girl affirmed her limited resources: “We barely have any money for food. I only have a couple pairs of shirts and two pairs of pants. I have no shoes, as you can see [she pointed to her shoes held together with duct tape].” She attributed the tension with her mother and stepfather to her revealing to school personnel that her mother grew marijuana, and her mother’s resulting incarceration. She moved between homes of her father, who did not want her, and an aunt, and then returned to live with her mother and stepfather. Unwanted by them, she spent much of her adolescence “couch surfing”—that is sleeping at the homes of various people she knew. Although she was supervised and counseled as part of probation, and sent to drug treatment as an adult, the interview provided no indication of intervention to improve the family environment or help her leave it; in fact, the adult probation officer required her to live with her mother and stepfather, fearing that if she were on her own, she would “self-destruct” (P).

Returning to Destructive Families After Placement

For girls who had been repeatedly sexually abused in their families and who had manifested tendencies toward suicide or self-harm, if community and local placements did not work out or indicated inability to provide needed intervention, the juvenile court placed them in one or more out-of-county or out-of-state treatment programs. For example, one girl (#9) had repeatedly been raped by a brother between ages 4 and 9 years, cut herself multiple times, and was placed in a series of residential treatment facilities. Few study participants had this pattern of intervention. Some of those who did, including the girl just described, returned to destructive families and continued illegal behavior, despite considerable time and investment in treatment.

Another girl who returned to a negative family (#10) came to the court’s attention for truancy, and later was charged with larceny. The professional indicated several males in the household had been incarcerated for molesting children and her stepfather had sexually abused the girl. The court’s intervention had focused on truancy, drug use, self-destructive behavior, and suicidal thoughts, culminating in a placement in an out-of-state residential facility followed by placement in a local transitional living residence. Almost 17, the girl returned to her mother’s home. The life calendar she and the interviewer completed reads that after her return, at age 16, “Father died. Stopped going to school. Stopped looking for a job. Was kicked off of probation. Counseling ended.” The girl said,

I think if they would have kept me in [a treatment program in another state] longer, I think I probably would have been better off than what I am now. I think—I don’t know. When I got out of—cause when I first came back from [that state], I was doing good here. I was going to school. I wasn’t smoking. I wasn’t drinking. I was doing good. Then I got out of the little program and stuff, came back over here [living at home], and everybody was still doing the same thing they was doing, and I fell right back into the habit, doing what everybody else was doing.

Speaking about the out-of-state program, she went on, “When I first got back from [state], I used to try to call those guys. I think I did call up there one time and talk to the people, but then after a while I just let it go.” Back home, she lived with her cognitively impaired mother who was the only wage earner in the household, but who could not work for several months due to surgery. A continuous stream of 15 to 20 people spent time at the house. They included her sisters’ boyfriends who tried to engage with her sexually. This study participant avoided staying at her boyfriend’s place, because he “gets mad a lot” about things like her “going outside” and having numbers in her cell phone that “he thinks are for other men.” The living conditions, mother’s medical problems, sisters’ boyfriends, her boyfriend’s controlling behavior, and the entire family’s poverty appeared to create the stress she said she dealt with by “smoking weed.” This was the only illegal activity she admitted to, and she was proud she attended a job preparation program, had just earned her GED, and “I still have no babies!”

Some girls never revealed family abuses to professionals, who therefore tried to build relationships with an abusive parent. One of them (#6) answered questions about material neglect in her childhood, saying since her father did not buy things for her, “every time” she lived with him, “[I] always stole my clothes” or “stole stuff and then sold it to get clothes and the stuff I needed.” Her father periodically left her alone for weeks or months at a time and lived in another city. At other times, he “kicked me out,” but then denied this to other people. She described her father as “fake,” “manipulative,” and “a liar.” After this girl ran from a group home, the courts placed her in detention for several months and then in long-term residential treatment. After release, she “house flopped,” staying with one of her parents or a boyfriend or friend, had two babies, and continued using drugs. She did not work or attend school; she told the interviewer that she just quit smoking and drinking so she could regain child custody. She had been in jail at least twice for assault charges for fighting. Her situation illustrates the negative result when professionals charged with assisting girls do not recognize the extent of harm perpetuated by the girls’ caretakers against the girls.

Residential Placement and Repairing Families

Of the 23 girls placed in residential treatment settings, those with troubled rather than violent, criminal, and destructive families tended to describe family interventions during their time living in a local program as contributing to positive outcomes. A combination of family therapy or counseling and parent education and at least one parent’s home being devoid of physical violence, sexual abuse, and adults using or selling drugs often but not always produced positive outcomes. The families were more troubled than destructive or “empty.” The cases of girls in the local group home, where staff routinely counseled caregivers during girls’ stay and for a period after they moved home, provided several examples of positive outcomes of direct intervention with troubled families.

One group home resident (#26) had frequently skipped school to smoke marijuana all day and repeatedly physically fought with other students when at school. By the time of the interview, she had stopped smoking, lived at home, and regularly attended school. Group home staff described correcting the mom’s rigidity and inconsistency and the dad’s repeated “giving in.” Interventions extended beyond counseling the parents to court initiated wraparound services to coordinate a GED program, court supervision, substance abuse counseling, and post-placement family counseling. Interviews with the professional and the girl confirmed supportive parents and no parental abuse and lawbreaking. This girl attributed getting along with her parents, stopping marijuana and alcohol use, and school success to the group home rules, which she kept “around me” after leaving. The group home provided a substitute family with consistent rules, counseling to improve parental limit setting, and reconnection to school.

Often, interventions delivered while girls were in placement focused on building positive relationships with one or more potentially supportive family members. Even though her siblings were heavily involved in illegal activity (“drugs, gangs, and stuff” [P]) and her single-parent father “didn’t know what to do [as a parent]” (P), group home staff tried to improve Study Participant 2’s relationship with her sister, who had just returned home “off drugs,” and created times and activities that brought father and daughter together while daughter lived in the group home. The girl described improved family relationships. Similarly, staff worked to build a relationship between another girl (#27) and her grandfather, who raised her after abandonment by both parents. Staff arranged joint activities and required counseling to work on communication. The combination of interventions resulted in the girl’s living back home with a stronger sense that her grandfather cared about her.

Court intervention with the father of a girl (#14) whose family environment had been more destructive and for whom the path to a positive living situation was less direct left her with increased family support. Her parents were divorced. After an attempt to tether her to her mother’s home, where mother and daughter repeatedly assaulted each other, followed by foster home placement and periods moving back and forth between her mother’s and father’s residences, this study participant became pregnant. To contain marijuana use during pregnancy, the court placed her in a program for pregnant teenagers (P). The professional describe the father as taking no action prior to this placement, when his daughter stayed away for “days at a time,” even when she was under “house arrest” at his home. During the placement period, the court’s family support services division assigned a worker to help the father “clean up the house, make more structure in the home while she was gone, so that when she came back there was some more structure for her” (P). After she and the baby moved back home, the girl named her father as the only supportive adult in her life. He helped with babysitting, dependably paid the rent, took her children to the doctor, and “. . . is a big help with the kids, and he always tells me that he loves me and cares about me.” She worked at a fast food restaurant and was “trying to quit [smoking weed] because I have my kids.” After various interventions with family members in conjunction with residential placement, several girls from troubled families attended educational programs, and all but Participant 14 avoided drug use and other lawbreaking.

Girls Living Independently From Caretakers

Some girls with empty and damaging families moved to more favorable living situations, avoided illegal activity, and attended school or worked. They followed two different routes to this outcome. First, the group home, which routinely first tried to repair and restore families, shifted emphasis to enabling some girls to make it on their own, or as we describe for one girl below, gave them hope they could someday live on their own. A second route to separation from highly damaging families was for girls to find their own new living arrangements after leaving placement. Of the girls with positive outcomes (i.e., bonds to school or work and no illegal activity), those who lived apart from their families at the point of the interview tended to have come from especially damaging and intractable family environments.

The group home prepared a study participant (#24), who described her mother as constantly smoking marijuana and arguing, to manage without her family. Several arguments led to the girl’s running away, and one resulted in her being charged with domestic violence and sent to counseling so she could learn “alternatives to domestic violence.” The professional said that problems with the mother,

… made her really determined to get her own job and so that, I mean on her part we don’t normally see this, but she was really determined that she was gonna get her own job. She paid for drivers training. She was gonna make sure she had gas money and that her money was her spending money so that her mom didn’t have to give her any. I think she felt like that was kind of her role that she needed to do for herself and to help out.

Group home staff focused heavily on skills for independent living, re-involvement with school, and building self-esteem. They worked with her family when she moved back home, but after she became pregnant, she moved in with her boyfriend and his parents, who she described as “like a second mom and dad to me.” She worked 30 hr a week and attended school at the point that she took part in the research.

Another girl (#18), in court for running away, truancy, and retail fraud, also found her own alternative living arrangement after leaving a group home. A few years before the interview, she heard the shots that killed her mother. After that, she alternated between three living situations: staying with her drug-using father, who had drug-involved people constantly in and out of the house; living with a “strict” grandmother, who periodically “kicked” her out for breaking rules; and staying with friends. Rejoining her father after the group home placement ended, she quickly became disillusioned by his “not changing.” She moved in with her boyfriend and his mother. She found the new family supportive, and described herself: “I do well in school and I’m more responsible. I’m a better person all around.”

One study participant’s (#19’s) situation stands as a final example of a girl prepared to live independently from damaging caretakers. She was not breaking the law. However, because of concerns for her siblings (cited above saying, “When I move out of my mom’s house I plan on getting my little brother and sister out of that house”) and lack of alternatives, she had unrealized hopes of independence. Even though the group home and courts could not find an alternative to sending her back home to live with her addicted mother and the mother’s drug-dealing boyfriend, in the girl’s eyes, group home staff stopped her drinking and smoking pot and “hanging out with dumb people.” She said “having ten mothers” at the group home and all that they had taught her and helped her with had changed her. She attended a court-run school, which provided monitoring and numerous supportive services.

Conclusion and Discussion

Prior criticisms of court responses to delinquent girls’ and their families led us to look for specific potentially problematic juvenile court interventions. The analysis also identified previously unrecognized patterns of family intervention that might be considered in future study of the effects of juvenile court actions on samples of interest within local jurisdictions. Moreover, it revealed some interventions which, for some types of families, the girls viewed as helpful.

For the court jurisdiction studied, results supported some but not all prior criticisms of juvenile court responses to girls and their caretakers. Consistent with prior criticisms, girls were found “guilty of domestic violence” after being arrested for assault when they fought back against assaultive family members. Also consistent, the girls described court failures to intervene in destructive caretaker behavior. Specifically, although girls from families that were troubled, but not highly damaging benefitted from residential treatment coupled with family interventions, those with highly damaging families that did not change experienced negative outcomes (i.e., detachment from work and school and continued illegal behavior), even after extensive stays in residential placements. When they left placements and returned to damaging families, some girls coped by using marijuana heavily, or in a few cases, by engaging in other types of illegal activity.

One reason girls leaving placements returned to families that remained destructive was the lack of local programs available to intervene with both parents and with girls who threatened suicide and self-harm. Although state law requires residential placements close to juveniles’ homes, only distant placements accepted girls considered a danger to themselves. Thus, girls often rejoined the families that likely caused their need for the intensive out-of-state treatment. Compounding problems with transition, girls over 16 became ineligible for continuing mental health support or other juvenile court resources. Girls following this pattern expressed their sense of loss and isolation after intensive placements and community services ended.

Inconsistent with prior criticisms, court actions to control sexuality were not evident in our data. However, the analysis showed what is perhaps a contemporary reinvention of “protection for your own good,” the use of out-of-home placement to stop pregnant girls from using marijuana. Research (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011; Strandberg-Larsen et al., 2008) provides convincing evidence of the negative effects of alcohol and tobacco on the fetus, but is less clear about the effects of other drugs. Even if these drugs are damaging, it is debatable whether the juvenile courts should base girls’ placement on fetal protection. This practice harkens back to reasoning that led to girls’ institutionalization to protect them from the harms of sexual activity.

Also inconsistent with prior criticisms of juvenile court, instead of the pattern of punitive placement for running away from abusive caretakers, the data revealed a more complex picture, with some girls benefitting in the short-run from leaving their families, but then still having negative outcomes when they later returned to the same destructive families. However, the research design may account for the null findings regarding criminalization of runaway girls’ survival strategies. As we recruited girls engaged in the group home program or who received other types of placement or intensive community intervention, possibly we missed girls who lived on the streets, breaking the law to support themselves, who the courts punished but did not steer to treatment programs. Some or all of the eight girls we could not locate or who declined to participate may have followed the classic pattern of running, crime, and punishment. Future research should consider alternative sampling strategies such as snowball sampling or sampling through agencies that serve youth living on the streets or in other places due to being runaway.

The study discovered two previously undocumented juvenile court responses to girls and their families. The first, court-ordered “house arrest,” was usually either ineffective or it forced girls to be in close contact with people who harmed them. The second, enabling girls to permanently leave destructive families, had positive benefits but is not typically considered a viable court intervention. Yet, for some girls with damaging caretakers, independence led to positive outcomes. Juvenile court jurisdictions and their communities would maximize their effectiveness by preparing and providing resources for girls to leave harmful families that promote their regular use of marijuana, assaultive behavior, or other illegal activity. In the same vein, but contrary to national assessments showing the deficits of foster care placement (Pergamit & Ernst, 2010), the one girl who had lived with a foster family for several years received numerous counseling services, regarded her foster family as her sole family, and had a positive outcome. Although two other girls in foster families continued to break the law (one using marijuana regularly, the other charged with assault against a sister), they both had ties to school and a safe place to live. As other scholars have noted (Blechman & Vryan, 2000; Gelles, 1996), family restoration is not always the best practice. Even with intensive interventions and court directives, some families remain highly damaging to youth, who would benefit most from investment in resources to prepare them for self-sufficiency.

To improve justice for the girls’ like the study participants, the courts and the programs they rely on should consider several possibilities. First, it is essential that girls and families be assessed with girl-centered risk assessment instruments (Gavazzi, Yarcheck, & Chesney Lind, 2006; MacDonald & Chesney Lind, 2001; Welch, Roberts-Lewis, & Parker, 2009) that reveal whether they would benefit most from return home, or from support to live independently or in group or foster care settings. Such girl-centered assessment might prevent youth being “tethered” to damaging homes, or held responsible for mutual or defensive combat with parents. Even if formal assessments suggest a safe home environment, courts should recognize that girls may not reveal realities of family life, and girls do not typically assault family members or run away from home with no cause. Given the court’s role in punishment, it may be that external professionals should make determinations of whether home environments are “safe,” and time may be needed for professionals to build trust with girls.

Girls in damaging families that will not change need a variety of alternatives that allow them to safely mature into adults. More focus on emancipation may be necessary, coupled with alternative places for young women, some with children, to live. The group home appeared to have developed a model of programming that encouraged independence, and this model would be worth consideration for replication and expansion. Finally, given the pattern of girls’ receiving helpful intensive assistance outside the community, or in one case in the local group home, but then having to return to highly destructive family situations, it is clear that another resource is needed to provide local assistance that does not end at age 17 and that is available upon return to the community.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by the Family and Children Together Coalition, Michigan State University.

Notes

Author Biographies

Merry Morash is a professor at the School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University. Her recent books include Women on Probation and Parole: A Feminist Critique of Community Programs and Services (Northeastern University Press) and Understanding Gender Grime and Justice (Sage). With Meda Chesney-Lind, she is also editor of the edited volume, Feminist Theories of Crime (Ashgate). Her current research focuses on an integrated theory of communication and corrections applied to women on probation on parole, girls in juvenile court, the influence of school context on delinquency, women police, and domestic violence among immigrant groups.

Tia S. Andersen is an assistant professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of South Carolina. She holds a PhD from Michigan State University. Her research interests include girls’ delinquency and programming, gender and racial inequalities in the juvenile justice system, and the intersections of race, class, and gender. Her research has appeared in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, Youth & Society, and Justice Quarterly.

Julie Yingling is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Rural Studies at South Dakota State University. She holds a PhD from Michigan State University. Her research interests include gender-related pathways into involvement in methamphetamine markets and police avoidance techniques that participants use, as well as the structure of drug markets. She also focuses on qualitative research methods applied to understanding girls’ experiences in juvenile court and domestic violence.

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