Family Participation for Juvenile Offenders in Deinstitutionalization Programs

This article reviews the literature dealing with the impact of deinsti‐tutionalization on families. It focuses on empirical research that has produced data on the outcome of family treatment, labeling, scape‐goating of the youth, and widening the net of the juvenile justice system. In spite of the increasingly widespread use of family intervention techniques for juveniles the review yields little empirical information about effects of deinstitutionalization programs on families. It does, however, raise some serious concerns about the potential cost of deinstitutionalization to different family members, and the relative rights of family members who are brought into treatment.