Mandatory Parental Involvement in the Treatment of “Delinquent” Youth

Family Therapy with Delinquents: A Critical Review of the Literature

“…The second influential trend, pointing to the need for this review, is that while the credibility of psychological research and the treatment approach have generally declined within the juvenile justice system, family-focused interventions are showing promise (57, 58) and have gained support (33,47,62,70,112). For example, Windell and Windell (120) noted an increased implementation of parent training and other family-focused interventions within juvenile courts.…”

“…It is our view that psychological research, in general, has much to offer the juvenile justice system. Specifically, a thorough examination of the family therapy and delinquency literature can provide pertinent information about treatment that is useful in developing delinquency policies.The second influential trend, pointing to the need for this review, is that while the credibility of psychological research and the treatment approach have generally declined within the juvenile justice system, family-focused interventions are showing promise (57, 58) and have gained support (33,47,62,70,112). For example, Windell and Windell (120) noted an increased implementation of parent training and other family-focused interventions within juvenile courts.…”

“…These aspects represent important considerations for research and practice in family therapy with delinquents. Compared to normal families, families of delinquents tend to: (a) have more frequent parental disagreements during interactions and present conflicting directives to the children; (b) exhibit less differentiation between influence of parent and child on family decisions, with families of delinquents having equalitarian or child-skewed power distributions (inverted hierarchies), and nondelinquent families having hierarchical power distributions with parents more influential than children; (c) express less positive affect and more negative affect; (d) misperceive a greater proportion of communications; and (e) present a larger proportion of communications that indicate an unwillingness to compromise.Simultaneous to the appearance of these reports of psychological research clarifying the role of the family in delinquency, increasing attention was given to the family in the criminal justice literature vis-à-vis the treatment and prevention of delinquency (12,15,47,103,104,115). For example, Ingram (43) suggested that from a legal viewpoint, a family can be considered a socializing institution, and delinquency can be considered the failure of that institution in its function of inculcating social values and self restraint in children.…”

“…Simultaneous to the appearance of these reports of psychological research clarifying the role of the family in delinquency, increasing attention was given to the family in the criminal justice literature vis-à-vis the treatment and prevention of delinquency (12,15,47,103,104,115). For example, Ingram (43) suggested that from a legal viewpoint, a family can be considered a socializing institution, and delinquency can be considered the failure of that institution in its function of inculcating social values and self restraint in children.…”

How Parents can Affect the Processing of Delinquents in the Juvenile Court

“…Interestingly, numerous authorities support the notion that, often, rehabilitative efforts must involve the entire family (Fraser et al 1988;Janeksela 1979;Roberts 1989;Stouthamer-Loeber and Loeber 1988;Vincent 1977). Nevertheless, other commentators object to any idea of mandating parental participation in rehabilitative measures because the parents will regard such measures as punishment to themselves, because there will be a negative effect on the family life, and because the focus of the juvenile court will be turned away from the youth (Comment 1984; Streib 1978).…”