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The incarcerated male adolescent's view of the meaning of his experience: A phenomenological study
Abstract
Each year in Massachusetts there are approximately 21,000 juveniles arraigned in court on criminal charges. If trends continue as they have over the past ten years, juvenile arrests for violent crimes will double by the year 2010 (DYS, 1996). This indicates a need to examine closely the current methods of rehabilitation and socialization of incarcerated youths. This study examines the experiences of eight ajudicated, incarcerated male adolescents to discover the meaning these offenders are making of their daily experience in a Massachusetts secure treatment unit and indicates whether this experience is congruent with the expressed goals and purpose of the Department of Youth Service. This study also expanded on the work of Kegan (1982) by investigating the applicability of his model of developmental stages in meaning making systems to incarcerated male adolescents. The qualitative approach of semi-structed interviewing was used in order to avoid imposing the ideas and standards of the psychological establishment as well as that of the experimenter's culture on the experience of the adolescents. Using Kegan's model, African-American, Caucasian and Hispanic subjects were found to be all functioning at the same developmental level. Qualitative analysis of the data revealed "trust" as a significant issue and identified the lack of the ability on the part of the subjects to take another's perspective as a major deterrent to the messages inherent in the program's stated goals and also to the actual methodology used by the staff. Case history material from the Department of Youth Services and Kegan's semi-structured, subject-object interviews provided a multi-dimensional understanding of the complex picture of the adolescents' experiences. Conclusions are drawn from the data leading to suggestions for better communication between incarcerated adolescents and those professionals in whose care they have been entrusted.
Subject Area
Developmental psychology|Psychotherapy|Cognitive therapy|Criminology
Recommended Citation
Carhart, Ann, "The incarcerated male adolescent's view of the meaning of his experience: A phenomenological study" (1998). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9841848.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9841848