Negative Trends, Possible Selves, and Behavior Change

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Qualitative Social Work Copyright ©2005 Sage Publications London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi, Vol. 4(2): 175–196 www.sagepublications.com DOI:10.1177/1473325005052392

ARTICLE

Negative Trends, Possible Selves, and Behavior Change A Qualitative Study of Juvenile Offenders in Residential Treatment Laura S. Abrams and Jemel P. Aguilar University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, USA

ABSTRACT

KEY WORDS: qualitative methods self-concept

This study uses Stein and Markus’ (1996) self-concept and behavior change framework to examine youth offenders’ responses to individual-level treatment in a residential correctional facility. The authors analysed transcripts collected from 10 male offenders, aged 15–17, who were interviewed at least three times over a period of four to six months. Results showed that while many offenders were able to identify negative trends in their life that led to their criminal behavior, other cognitively filtered out self-defeating information and did not identify troubling life patterns. Offenders also articulated visions of hoped for selves that were anchored in their lived experiences with positive role models and feared the selves that they might become if they continued down a criminal path. However, nearly all of the offenders had loosely organized or vague strategies for achieving their hoped for or idealized selves. Based on these findings, the authors pose implications for self-concept theory and for treatment practices with this population group.

youth offenders

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176 ■ Qualitative Social Work 4(2)

In October 2000, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention documented over 100,000 juvenile offenders nationwide who resided in correctional out of home placements (Sickmund, 2002). Social workers and other mental health professionals who practice in residential or outpatient facilities for juvenile offenders typically provide a range of therapeutic and behavior modification services to achieve the end goal of behavior change.These strategies include psychotherapeutic, cognitive-behavioral, group-skills training, and combined treatment approaches (Lipsey et al., 2000). Behavior change approaches in juvenile correctional institutions are highly focused on the individual; that is, the burden to change is centered on the offender taking responsibility for his/her past actions and learning how to make better future choices. Yet despite the intensive individual treatment services that are offered in corrections, high re-offense and re-conviction rates are well documented (Greenwood, 1996; Heilbrun et al., 2000). The overwhelming failure of residential treatment programs to halt criminal behavior patterns for juvenile offenders has led researchers and policy makers to test model programs that can curb recidivism rates (Lipsey et al., 2000). However, this focus on recidivism does not address the important question of how youth offenders respond to programs and treatments that focus on individual thought patterns and cognitive modes of behavior change. Based on these ‘unknowns’, we began this article by questioning the process of changing criminal attitudes, identities, and behaviors for juvenile offenders. Considering the issue of behavior change in broader terms, we found that current social psychology literature points to complex intra-psychic and environmental processes for lasting behavior change to occur (Oyserman and Markus, 1990; Prochaska and DiClemente, 1984; Stein and Markus, 1996; Stein et al., 1998). For example, substance abuse researchers have discovered a great deal about the links between internal cognitive readiness to stop drinking and the likelihood of successful sobriety (Ford, 1996). In the social work literature, research has not examined the intermediary steps involved in behavior change for youth offenders, or questioned how youth actually understand and experience common treatment strategies such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Yet given that individually focused strategies such as CBT and goal-setting are considered to be best practices with this population group (Greenwood, 1996; Lipsey et al., 2000), we believe that an understanding of youth offenders’ responses to professional attempts to alter their thinking patterns and selfconcepts is warranted. Hence in this qualitative study, we explore how young men grapple with expectations to change their ways of conceptualizing their past, present, and future selves in the context of a six-month residential program that includes both cognitive-behavioral therapy and behavior modification approaches to offender rehabilitation.

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Abrams & Aguilar Negative Trends, Possible Selves ■ 177

LITERATURE REVIEW To locate a theoretical framework to assess youths’ responses to their treatment in a residential correctional facility, we chose to utilize Stein and Markus’ (1996) theory of self-concept and behavior change.While this article does not seek to measure behavior change explicitly, we are concerned with how young people interpret and react to the behavioral and cognitive treatment modalities that are commonly used in residential treatment and correctional facilities for juvenile offenders. We found that Stein and Markus (1996) offered the most relevant theoretical framework with which to assess youths’ responses to treatment in the context of these individually focused ‘best practices’ strategies. Below we will explain this model and how it applies to juvenile offender rehabilitation. In the self-concept literature, recognition of the need for behavior change begins with an understanding of the ‘negative trends’ that led to the current problem that the individual is facing. A negative trend means a consistent and presumably troubling pattern of behavior. Individuals who employ schemas that edit out self-defeating criticism will continue to engage in the behavior without recognizing the self-destructive trend (Stein and Markus, 1996), whereas those who are able to cognitively accept the trend may launch a sustained change effort. For example, residential treatment programs may provide feedback to juvenile offenders by requiring the offender to recount past criminal arrests, incarcerations, or other consequences of their behaviors. Treatment programs often view this practice as a method of highlighting how their crime affects the offender, their family, and community. However, the juvenile offender may resist looking at these trends by viewing the information as self-defeating. In this case, she or he might construct an alternative explanation for their incarcerations or other penalties and ‘recall’ getting caught as the negative event. According to Stein and Markus’ (1996) principles, this encoding and recall bias allows the offender to defend against threats to self-concept and sustain their self-esteem at the cost of re-examining their behavior and self-concept. An individual moves into the second stage of this behavior change process when he/she recognizes the need to change his/her behavior because of these negative trends and can envision alternative ways of acting and becoming in the future. If cognitive schemas do not filter out information that threatens an individual’s self-concept, then personalized, comprehensive images of how a person can be in the future, known as ‘possible selves’, are needed to continue this change process (Stein and Markus, 1996). Possible selves contain realistic approximations of how a person can be in the future and the dreams and fears associated with becoming that person.A person is less likely to succeed in behavior change when they cannot imagine alternative ways of acting. In their work on delinquency, Oyserman and Markus (1990) propose that possible selves include those selves to aspire towards, or ‘hoped for selves’, and those to avoid, known as ‘feared

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selves’. Hoped for selves are future-oriented, fantasies about oneself that may or may not be realistic. Feared selves are the antithesis of hoped for selves, the depictions of oneself to avoid. Both hoped for and feared selves can be drawn from family expectations, role modeling by peers, and/or constraints and opportunities within the social environment. Oyserman and Markus (1990) suggest that behaviors leading toward hoped for selves are more likely to be enacted, whereas behaviors leading toward their feared selves are more likely to be avoided. The third phase of their model includes the development of concrete strategies for achieving hoped for visions of a new self and avoiding feared selves (Hemmings, 1998; Oyserman and Markus, 1990; Stein and Markus, 1996). For example a person who initiates sobriety through Alcoholics Anonymous must decide whether the people, places, and things apart from their alcoholic life will support their sobriety (hoped for selves) or their continued alcohol dependence (feared selves).Also, the support of non-alcoholic family and friends can advance an individual’s transition toward a sober life by reinforcing the phases of behavior change and the visions of a future self. For juvenile offenders, one of the key problems identified by several researchers is the inability to stay away from crime once released from a treatment environment (Gies, 2003; Greenwood, 1996; Jackson and Knepper, 2003). Hence the development of realistic strategies to achieve hoped for selves and avoid feared selves is considered in this theory to be integral to successful and sustained behavior change.

ASSUMPTIONS AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS Residential treatment programs for juvenile offenders are typically geared to help young people understand their selves, families, communities, and their patterns of behavior in the hopes of desisting from future crime (Curtis et al., 2001). However, not all offenders will adhere to this framework, and many will in fact ‘fake’ their way through the process in order to skirt the system and earn their release (Abrams et al., 2005). For this analysis, we sought to examine how 10 youth offenders conceptualized and responded to professional attempts to change their ways of thinking about themselves according to the three stages that Stein and Markus’ model identifies.The following research questions guided this analysis: 1 Do youth offenders identify negative trends in their lives through the process of participating in a therapeutic residential treatment program? 2 Do offenders develop and internalize hoped for and feared selves through their treatment? What possible selves do youth offenders imagine? 3 Does treatment help offenders to devise working strategies to move toward hoped for selves and avoid feared selves? Are these strategies viewed as attainable within the social environment(s) where they will return upon their release?

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METHOD This study analysed field notes and interview transcripts from qualitative fieldwork that took place in a residential treatment facility for young men in Williams County, Minnesota.1 Williams County is a mixed urban and suburban area of southeast Minnesota and is home to approximately 10% of the state’s juvenile population (US Census Bureau, 2000).The county residential facility where data were collected detains youthful male offenders for a period of four to six months, along with three months of ‘aftercare’ programming in the community. Wildwood House has the capacity to serve up to 75 young men aged 13–18 years and offers a comprehensive program including an on-site public school. The racial census of the facility is approximately 38% African-American, 33% Caucasian, 15% Asian, 9% Latino, 4% Native American, and 2% other/unknown. Compared to their population proportions, youth of color are vastly overrepresented in the facility. The types of treatment and programming offered in the facility will be further described in the findings section of this article. Study Design and Data Collection Techniques

This study was a field research project that was informed by ethnographic principles and methods. While not a pure ethnography (i.e. total immersion in a culture), the researchers sought to observe, record, and engage in the daily life of the institutional setting (Marcus, 1986). Fieldwork consisted of 16 months of regular (meaning weekly or twice-weekly) participant observation sessions and a series of qualitative semi-structured interviews with facility residents that occurred from February 2001–June 2002. During fieldwork observations, the researchers, typically in pairs, would participate in the routine of the dorm and interact with staff and residents during regularly scheduled program activities such as meals, sports, or treatment groups. This role could best be classified as ‘participant observers’, meaning that while the researchers did not pretend to be group ‘insiders’ or employees, they did not occupy a purely sideline or outsider role (Rubin and Babbie, 2005). After each observation session the researchers would record detailed and separate field notes that contained rich, descriptive details of their observations. The researchers also interviewed 12 residents at least three times each during their stay at the facility and once upon their return home. This final ‘home’ interview occurred with 5 out of the 12 interviewees and was scheduled within 2 months after the transition back to the community. All of the interviews were semi-structured in that the researchers used established lists of topics to ‘guide’ the conversations (Patton, 1990), but the discussions often took different directions. Some thematic angles of inquiry were specific to each interview; others cut across all of the interviews in order to understand residents’ perceptions and attitudes of themselves and the facility as they changed over

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time. The interviews usually lasted between 45 and 90 minutes and were recorded on audiotapes.The principal investigator (the first author of this article, a female) and a male research assistant conducted the interviews jointly. During each interview, one of the researchers occupied the lead conversational role and the other took detailed interview notes. As we became more familiar with the residents through participant observation and interviewing, the 12 interview participants became increasingly comfortable sharing information with us. Several of the participants in this study would request an interview because they felt they wanted to express themselves to a ‘safe’ adult. Our relationships with the residents would best be characterized as friendly, as open-ended interviewing methodology allowed them to share their stories without fear of judgment or consequences. Sampling

Participants were selected by convenience and were required to meet two criteria: (1) At least three months remaining at the facility in order to assess change over time; and, (2) active consent from the offenders and their caregiver(s). Researchers recruited two waves of study participants in groups of six. To recruit these groups, the researchers gathered together all of the new residents and explained the study to them, its purpose, and the consent requirements. About two-thirds of those recruited volunteered to participate in the study, and about one half of the total recruited ended up meeting the consent requirements. In all, 12 participants participated in a series of interviews.A small sample was considered desirable based on the intensity and frequency of the interviews. The sample was diverse with regard to ethnicity and included 4 Caucasians, 4 African Americans, 1 Native American, 1 Latino, and 2 Hmong offenders. Their ages ranged from 15–17 years. Table 1 lists basic demographic information about the interview sample. Data Analysis

Field notes were coded into large chunks of text representing themes that pertained to the study as a whole.These larger organizing concepts extend beyond the scope of this particular article. For this article, field notes that fell into the ‘treatment’ category were then sub-coded according to the questions of interest for this article.These sub-codes were placed into a visual matrix to help determine the general thrust of the treatment activities and how they pertained to the concepts included in Stein and Markus’ schema, including ‘negative trends’, ‘possible selves’, and ‘strategies for behavior change’. For the interview data, the authors purposively selected a sub-sample of 10 participants from the total pool of 12 youth who participated in the interviews.2 Before coding the interviews, the authors read all of the transcripts included in the sample and made conceptual outlines for each interview. Then

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Table 1 OFFENDER VARIABLES Name

Crime

Age Ethnicity

Criminal History*

Nino

Probation Violation

16

Moderate

African American

Kei

16

Hmong

Humphrey Assault/Probation Violation

Probation Violation/Burglary

15

White/African Moderate

Low

Jason

Felony Escape

17

Hmong

Extensive

Trevor

Burglary

15

White

Extensive

Elijah

Assault/Probation Violation

16

African

Moderate

American

American Josh

Felony Theft

16

White

Low

Terrell

Probation Violation/ Truancy

15

African

Moderate

Brad

Auto Theft/Probation Violation 16

American Native

Extensive

American Eric

Theft

15

White

Minimal

Note: *Based on number of prior arrests: 1–2 being low, 3–4 being moderate, and 5+ being extensive.

we reread the interviews and coded passages representing the concepts and questions under investigation. Next we constructed a row by column matrix to display and interpret the coded passages. For example, for each respondent, quotes or passages related to ‘negative trends’,‘possible selves’, and ‘strategies for behavior change’ were included in the matrix. Displaying the reduced data in this manner permitted a visual method of comparing a respondent’s statements to others in the sample. Also, this matrix allowed us to compare and contrast the coded passages to determine if themes existed across interviews, or if their perceptions changed over time in treatment (Ryan and Bernard, 2000). As themes and comparisons emerged in the interview matrix, we related them to the themes generated about treatment through the field notes.At the conclusion of this comparative process, we had a list of responses to treatment that related to the experiences of all participants, those that were unique to individual respondents, that those that were unsupported by the data.The themes that held up to this process of testing through comparison were maintained and are reported in this article (Gilgun, 2001; Strauss and Corbin, 1998).

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FINDINGS These findings are organized into two sections. In the first section we use fieldwork notes to briefly describe the setting and the types of treatments offered to the residents. We focus particularly on the use of individualized treatment strategies geared toward attitudinal and cognitive change.We then consider, with a sample of 10 youths, their responses to this self-concept work using Stein and Markus’ (1996) model to guide the analysis. Under each of the theoretical rubrics of ‘negative trends’, ‘possible selves’, and ‘strategies for behavior change’, we consider the offenders’ engagement in and acceptance of self-concept work as it was presented to them in this particular residential correctional facility. Observations of Treatment Work

Wildwood House incorporates both correctional and therapeutic strategies to influence offenders’ attitudes and behaviors concerning crime. For the correctional component, offenders must follow a strict set of rules and are held accountable for both minor and major role infractions. These rule infractions provide an opportunity for the staff to meet with residents and offer them feedback on what they are doing ‘wrong’ in the program and how to improve their behavior. On the treatment end, the program philosophy understands that residents engage in delinquent behavior due to underlying issues with family, school, and other environmental stressors. However, even with this premise, the program utilizes individually targeted behavior modification techniques through various therapies and groups. The group counseling programs that we observed were clearly focused on changing thought patterns and resulting behaviors. For example, daily cognitive skills groups teach the residents ‘thought stopping’ and other ways to use their cognitions to control violent impulses and behaviors. Field notes recorded several instances of staff encouraging youth to use the cognitive techniques of ‘thought stopping’ to change their behaviors: During the discussion, Mr C reminded the boys of what can happen if you don’t control your negative thoughts, referring that Darren (a former resident) is now in the state penitentiary for that very thing. One resident mentioned during group that the thing that helps him the most is learning how to think differently . . . the cognitive piece . . . This is because he needs to ‘learn how to react differently’ when he is ‘under stress’ or in a ‘stressful situation.’

In addition to attending these cognitive skills groups, residents are required to complete five ‘levels’ before they can be approved for release back to the community and into the aftercare program.3 They move up and down

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these five levels according to the emotional and therapeutic work they display in written treatment contracts, which are essay assignments that are geared toward understanding negative life patterns, identifying the consequences of violence, coming to terms with unresolved family issues, pain, and loss, and envisioning new ways of conducting their futures. The first required contract, which is the ‘victim-perpetrator’ essay, clearly reflects the negative trends piece of self-concept work. Field notes recorded: Thomas had to write out a series of thoughts about cycles of violence, his past experiences as victim and perpetrator, how his crime affects others, and also about thoughts, feelings, and actions related to the crime where he got caught and sent to Wildwood House. During peer group, a new resident presented his contract to the group. It was a standard procedure – he described how he felt victimized (in this case, by his mother who wouldn’t let him go to see his dad in Chicago) which then led him to steal a vehicle to drive down to Chicago himself. His contract focused on the thoughts and feelings that led him to steal the car, as well as how he felt afterwards that he had victimized people.

The next stage of this therapeutic development consists of examining situations to help youth to stay out of crime (such as avoiding ‘negative’ friends or family members who are bad influences on them). This process could be compared to envisioning ‘possible selves’ in terms of imagining situations that might place them in a different behavioral framework. For example: Joe is leaving in about two weeks. He said that the biggest challenge of going home will be to make new, positive friends and to stay away from the old negative ones. He wants to see himself as any ‘normal high school kid’ but at the same time, he knows he will have to try harder than most kids to stay out of trouble . . . he said he is glad that he has had the time in [Wildwood House] to improve himself.

Here Joe wants to imagine himself as a ‘normal kid’ but knows that he will have to work hard to sustain this self-image. As many of the residents learn to do through their treatment, he divides his friends into ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ categories that can represent opposite spectrums of behavior and choices where he can later situate himself. Lastly, when they are preparing to leave the facility and in aftercare groups, the residents are required to come up with ways to put their ‘ideas’ about behavior change into action. In other words, they must be able to implement strategies to actually resist temptations and change behaviors. One of our notes revealed:

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One resident’s idea was that nothing they learn at the facility can help them change at all, but what is most important is that they want to change when they leave. In the facility it is easy to do well because there are no temptations – no cars to steal, no drugs, no girls, no gangs.The challenge, he insisted, is when they leave and not go back to their old ways.

Here one of the residents that we observed clearly pointed out that a key piece of behavior change involves concrete strategies to avoid the ‘old’ ways of conducting their lives in their environments. As the interview transcripts analysed below will reflect, this final stage of devising workable strategies for behavior change proved to be the most challenging for the residents who participated in this study. Self-Concept Analysis

Negative Trends In the self-concept model, an individual initiates a behavior change process when she or he can identify the negative trends that led them to their current situation and recognize the need to alter these patterns. Based on this theory, we begin this analysis by examining offenders’ understandings of the negative trends that led them to a secure residential placement. For this group of offenders, these trends consisted of histories of law breaking, fighting, gang-related affiliations, school and family problems, substance abuse, parental incarceration, neglect, and abuse. As will be described, the analysis of these transcripts found that most of the youth used their treatment to clarify and recognize their pathways to delinquency and crime, others cognitively filtered information that pointed to negative trends, and some youth refused to acknowledge these patterns altogether, which eventually eclipsed the possibility of further selfconcept work. Some of the youth who were interviewed clearly identified the negative life trends that resulted in their current placement and used this information to consider the possibility that their treatment could change their life direction. In this sample, Kei, Nino, Jason, and Humphrey (see Table 1) were open to the possibility of change and were clearly identified the negative trends that led them to their current placement. Kei for example is a 16-year-old male who was sentenced to residential treatment after his arrest for burglary and a probation violation. Kei described his past behavior as ‘bad’ and says that he realized he ‘can’t learn nothing’ by engaging in criminal behavior. In one of his interviews, Kei explained his response to the treatment program: The contracts help a lot too.They make you realize what’s going on in your life . . . Like, when I wrote that down . . . it seemed like I wasted my whole life just doin’ stupid stuff to get me locked up.4 Like time is goin’ fast, like boom, boom,

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boom. All of a sudden one year older, I didn’t realize that it was goin’ that fast. Seein’ I’m wasting all my life doin’ stupid stuff to get me locked up.

For Kei, the process of reviewing his criminal behavior through the program’s treatment contracts allowed him to acknowledge the negative trends in his life and launch a process of potentially changing those patterns. Kei clearly perceived his placement as a step toward changing his life: First, I thought it was gonna be bad . . . a waste of my time, but then after a little while . . . when I was in [another placement], the staff said it was good and all that stuff. And the staff down there [the other placement] was tryin’ to help me too. So I was like yeah. It does seem like it was gonna help, so – and the ‘groups’ it helped me a lot to. Like to drop thoughts and all that stuff.

Like Kei, offenders whose cognitive schemas didn’t edit out self-critical data viewed the treatment programs as helpful and demonstrated openness to new ways of thinking about their life patterns, violence, and crime. Other participants showed some awareness of their negative trends, yet at times would cognitively filter out information that threatened a positive image of self or family and thereby denied these trends. For example, Josh is a 16year-old young man sentenced to the facility on account of felony theft. He described a family legacy of crime, previous generations that were placed in residential treatment, and numerous incarcerations of family members. Josh scoffed at the recognition of his family history as a negative trend. He stated: Josh: I heard stories cuz my uncle got shot by the cops. My other uncle went and spent in prison for 25 years. I don’t like . . . even when they [the police] hear my last name, they’re just like, ‘Oh ain’t you got a coupla uncles that are . . . ? You going down the same road, huh?’ Interviewer: What goes through your head when somebody asks you that question? Josh: Well I pretty much am (laughs). This is where they started out. So . . . I mean I’m not gonna keep going with it, but . . . I really can’t say nothing for myself now. Until I get back out and prove myself wrong. I’d have to say I’m going on the same road as them. My dad was here [the residential program] and so were both my uncles.

Although in this statement Josh admits to a negative family pattern in regard to crime and incarceration, in his subsequent interviews he denied his ‘family problems’ and instead felt that his family wasn’t ‘really my issue . . . My issue is my . . . I can’t really say what my issue is . . . it’s just my . . . my way of thinking’.

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Josh deflected attention from his family onto the treatment itself and several times concluded that treatment staff were trying to blame his parents for his own criminal behavior. But, then he said, ‘. . . maybe part of it is for breaking up [divorcing]. But most of it is not my parents’ fault that I’m doing the things I’m doing’. Here Josh filters out the prospect that his family is a negative influence, yet begins to buy into the idea that it is his own fault that he is in a correctional placement. Josh’s evaluation of his negative trends seemed to stem from competing schemas: filtering out some self-critical data about his family and yet accepting some negative trends with regard to himself. Likewise, although Trevor was initially resistant to identifying negative trends in his life, he exited the program with awareness of the ‘blinders’ that he had used to filter self-critical information. He stated,‘I didn’t realize the amount of crimes I’d done. I didn’t realize the amount of felonies I have on my record . . . Here you get the chance to see the stuff that you’ve avoided, that you’ve tucked in.’ Trevor’s comments reflect Stein and Markus’ notion that juvenile offenders unknowingly defend against self-admission of destructive patterns. For Trevor, time in treatment helped him to remove his own filters and to consider his life from a different angle. In this sample, Nick, Terrell, and Brad did not identify their negative trends throughout their treatment. Mechanisms for denying these trends included refusal to disclose information about their pasts to treatment staff, and negating or minimizing the extent of their negative trends. These three youths maintained the position throughout their treatment that their lives were not headed in a negative direction. For example, Terrell is a 15-year-old male convicted of an assault and auto theft. In the following interview excerpt Terrell demonstrated how he concealed the true extent of his drug usage from the facility staff: Interviewer: So you’re working on that better decision making it sound like is one of your treatment – part of your treatment stuff. Are you doing . . . the chemical dependency stuff too? Terrell: No. She [Terrell’s primary counselor] said I don’t have to go to chemical dependency because I talked to the chemical dependency worker and he said I don’t need it. It’s just like the problem with dad that I need to work on and everything. Interviewer: Did you tell him [the chemical dependency worker] that you smoke [marijuana] everyday? Terrell: I didn’t tell him that part.

As evidenced in the conversation, Terrell did not fully disclose his past history

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to the treatment staff.This resistance to full disclosure of past offenses and other destructive patterns can be interpreted as his attempt to ‘maintain face’ among counselors and other treatment staff. However, another interpretation of this behavior is that it is a schematic defense to preserve a former self-concept and, consequently, prevent him from recognizing the negative trends that led him to his current situation. While he may have acknowledged that select behaviors landed him in trouble, he schematically defended against piecing together a consistent pattern in the relationships between his drug use and his criminal history. Terrell, Nick, and Brad also tended to deflect attention away from their negative trends by denying their own need for treatment and minimizing the severity of their placement in corrections. For example, Brad, a 16-year-old male arrested for stealing an automobile, had been on probation for truancy since he was 12 years old, at 13 he was arrested for armed robbery but the charges were dropped, and at 16 he was arrested for burglary. Brad denied that his negative path led to his current sentence and instead described his treatment as ‘. . . a waste of a couple of months’. Similarly, Eric is a 15-year-old young man convicted of stealing expensive equipment from his high school who was previously a very good student with no prior offenses or arrests. Because his past was quite different from the other offenders in the program, Eric refused to see himself as a criminal and felt that at the end of treatment he’s ‘walking out of here with four months of my life wasted’.While the program essentially required youth to own up to destructive life patterns, these three youths remained closed to possibilities and did not engage in the subsequent stages of self-concept work. Hoped for and Feared Selves Stein and Markus (1996) suggest that once negative trends have been identified, the process of behavior change is continued by ‘hoped for selves’ and ‘feared selves’ becoming imagined opposites against which individuals can assess their future behaviors. In this sense, these possible selves become anchors for future ways of acting and being in the world. In this analysis, we examined whether offenders developed and internalized hoped for and feared selves through their process of treatment in this residential program. Other than Nick, Terrell, and Brad, who rejected the treatment work all together, the other respondents employed various strategies for envisioning their possible selves. It was common for respondents to construct their hoped for and feared selves based on reflections and role models of their friends and family members. They tended to seek outside sources to validate who they might become in the future. Using the program language of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ friends, Jason, for example, a 16-year old arrested for escaping a prior placement, described components of his hoped for self:

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They [positive friends] didn’t smoke, they did drink, go play some basketball, watch movies, uh, just go chill at a lake or a waterfall, take some pictures, go out to eat, and just hang out like that and go clean.

This image stood in contrast to negative friends who: They just smoke weed, drink, hang all night, like go like, chill back and all the gangs . . . go walk around some and if someone mess with us we beat on their ass, and that. Go play some ball, just go and just go out with some girls and smoke weed and drink.

Respondents also tended to express a desire discard their ‘old selves’ that involved criminal behaviors.These old patterns translated into feared possibilities for the future: that they would return to the selves represented by their past identities and affiliations. Nino for example described an internal struggle between the ‘good and bad self ’ in which the ‘bad self ’ would try to convince the good self that ‘I couldn’t ever have fun without drinking and smoking.That I should stay out late, hang with my friends, and be drinking or smoking.’The bad self contrasts with hopeful images of his future, in which he would be able to get a job, see life differently, and be reunited with his twin sons. To deal with the feared (bad) self, Nino felt that he would have to suppress that voice and replace it with encouraging and positive messages. The analysis also revealed that respondents who were ambivalent to begin with about identifying negative trends had more vague images of their hoped for selves compared to those who were very optimistic about their treatment. Yet they were still likely to use family and economic responsibilities to construct their hoped for selves and used past irresponsible selves or inflated images of their criminal personas as their feared selves. Elijah, similar to other respondents who had children, imagined a hoped for self in the form of a ‘good father’. According to Elijah, a good father is ‘a man that is willing to go out there to survive for himself and his son – and his family. A man that could find a job, go to school, end up being successful in life for his family.’ In contrast to this image, Elijah described components of his feared self when he characterized his ‘unmanageable life’ and where that might have led him in the absence of his arrest and subsequent placement, stating ‘I don’t wanna be no dad that he [Elijah’s son] gotta look at in a casket’. The casket image for Elijah constituted an imagined possible self that, under extreme circumstances, might have resulted from his street life had his conviction and placement not interrupted this trajectory. Similar to Elijah, Trevor found motivation for his possible self by envisioning that he could be a role model for his younger brother and for his son. He imagined the possibility of a new self wherein he can tell his little brother

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about the dangers of smoking and staying out all night and ‘. . . just tryin’ to tell him that his ways aren’t going to help’. For his son, he imagined him not ‘. . . growing up like I did. I’m gonna be there for him because my dad wasn’t there for me. But I’m gonna teach him stuff, to shave, stuff like that, like play football.’ This representation of the responsible brother and father is opposed to the feared self that would follow his old ways, which would ‘land him in the penitentiary’ if he continued to act as he did in the past, without structure or limits. Like Elijah,Trevor hoped to fulfill his responsibilities to others and feared the self that he might become in the absence of an alternative path.While these images are somewhat exaggerated (e.g. the casket, the penitentiary) they seemed to serve as cognitive anchors of selves to avoid. Strategies for Behavior Change In general, offenders’ strategies for achieving their hoped for selves and avoiding their feared selves were very mixed, ranging from vague and unrealistic to concrete and possibly attainable. On a positive note, several offenders left with some very concrete strategies to achieve their desired goals for self and behavior change. For example, some respondents described their plans to attend community college or a vocational program after obtaining a General Education Development Diploma (GED), become active in their family life, enter into drug treatment, or obtain work after release from residential treatment. Elijah, for example, entertained the possibility of staying out of jail and being reunited with his son. He stated: I gotta . . . I wanna go to treatment for marijuana use. I wanna go to anger management group, lose my anger problems. Other than that, I don’t need nuttin’ – go to school, to get my mind back right where it was.

Similarly, Humphrey, a 16-year-old young man convicted for criminal sexual conduct, described a very direct strategy for stemming his criminal behavior. He said: I want to go to college. That’s one of my motivations, and not growing up to be acting, being like my father. And not living my life the way that most people with the offense I’ve had [criminal sexual conduct] have to live it.

Nino also believed that if he could get a job and finish school, he would be less likely to become tempted back into crime.These strategies seemed positive and at times, realistically attainable for some of these respondents. Yet other offenders held only vague ideas of what it would be like to actually leave crime behind. Some of the offenders’ strategies reflected a ‘pick and choose’ mentality that made it seem simple to leave some aspects of criminal

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life behind, yet to maintain others. Josh for example intended to continue some of his behaviors, he said, ‘I plan on smoking weed once I get off probation . . .’ because ‘. . . I still don’t think anything’s wrong with it’. Even offenders who had expressed a great deal of confidence in their treatment, such as Jason or Kei, had trouble envisioning solid strategies to disassociate from their peer group comprised of gang-affiliated members. Jason for example felt that his ‘negative friends’ cared for him in a way that his family and ‘positive friends’ did not. As many of the youth were involved in neighborhood gangs, they exited the facility without solid plans or realistic strategies to sever these ties to their criminally involved friends. This seemed to be a critical piece of missing strategy. When the researchers met with the five offenders who had left the facility, two were re-incarcerated or detained in a juvenile detention center, and three were going to school and/or working and living at home. Our interview notes recorded that all five of these youths identified the absence of support for new lifestyles and plans as the most difficult piece of their transition home.They also echoed what we found in the interview data which was that peer influences, and particularly gangs, are difficult to resist once released back to the community. Hence although some of the offenders articulated practical and attainable strategies to achieve their hoped for selves, they tended to exit the facility, whether for a weekend visit or permanent release, without similarly formed strategies, and few offenders had strategies to avoid their feared selves. For some of the offenders, strategies were developed in haphazard ways. For others, even with strong recognition of patterns and solid ideas of who they want to become, disassociating with friends and finding environmental anchors for change remained challenging for them.

DISCUSSION Far-reaching and sustained behavior change is difficult even given the best of circumstances and social support systems. For juvenile offenders, the possibilities of successfully interrupting criminal behaviors are even more limited because they rarely seek help voluntarily or have access to the environmental supports that support the change process. Given these barriers it makes sense that this population has such high recidivism rates, even after completing lengthy and intense treatment programs (Gies, 2003; Heilbrun et al., 2000). However, the reflections presented in this article provide insight into some of the ways that youth understand and respond to the types of cognitive and behavioral work that are commonly required of them in residential facilities. Below we discuss how the self-concept model applied to the juvenile offenders who participated in this program, pose implications for self-concept theory, and conclude with a discussion of study limitations and ideas for future research.

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Implications for Juvenile Justice Interventions

The first study question posed was whether or not a residential treatment environment encourages youth offenders to engage in the recognition of negative trends. The analysis showed that indeed many of the offenders used their placement in a secure residential treatment facility as a marker of negative trends and began to lift the cognitive filters and self-concept protection strategies that had previously eclipsed this awareness. Most of the youth that were interviewed articulated an awareness of the surroundings and life experiences that culminated in their criminal arrest and conviction. Only three of the offenders that we interviewed did not buy into this model, and these offenders seemed to share a common rejection of any form of help. Overall it appears that intensive contract and group work, focused on cycles of violence in this case, did lead to recognition of these ‘negative’ life patterns. Next we assessed if the program helped residents to envision hoped for and feared selves that could eventually anchor their behavior change possibilities. Based on the youth’s responses, this treatment program seemed help the youth offenders to imagine their hoped for and feared possible selves. These hoped for and feared selves were often rooted in real life role models such as their friends and family members, and were also constructed through images of their own versions of self, whether in the past or perhaps imagined extremes. While all of the youth who engaged in the treatment process articulated faint or concrete visions of possible selves, some of these constructs seemed more likely to lead to behavior change than others. For example, identification of role models and responsibilities helped the offenders to create images of hoped for selves. We suspect that anchoring a possible self in terms of role models is most likely to sustain a process of change because role models offer tangible examples for offenders to pattern themselves after. While real life responsibilities such as fatherhood may be motivators of change, they in themselves do not necessarily construct a concrete version of a future self. And in fact, research suggests that teen fathers are more likely to recidivate than a non-father group (Unurh et al., 2003). Finally, we wondered if this type of treatment helps offenders to devise working strategies to move toward hoped for selves and avoid feared selves, and questioned if offenders viewed these strategies as attainable within their proximal social environments. Strategies for achieving hoped for selves and avoiding feared selves might be the most important ingredients for achieving behavior change in this population.Yet these strategies for even the most program-conforming offenders were only partially formulated. Offenders in this sample had trouble devising realistic or attainable strategies, particularly to avoid their feared selves (i.e. returning to old patterns, friends, and criminal surroundings).Their strategies also reflected confusion over how much of their old selves, peer groups, and environment they would have to leave behind in order to achieve their hoped

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for selves.This is a critical area of consideration for treatment of youth offenders.While many offenders might be amenable to engaging in therapeutic work in a controlled environment such as residential treatment, surely, as they articulated throughout this study, they are to be challenged with crime temptations upon their release. The implementation of concrete strategies to avoid their feared selves and achieve their desired selves seems to be critical to stemming recidivism. Highly related to these internal strategies are the family and environmental components that would support new constructions and models of self. Since most offenders will return to the family, school, and other environments that played a role in the development of their delinquency (Gies, 2003; Herrenkohl et al., 2000), they need both confidence and skills to resist old influences. Concrete planning on how to deal with pervasive criminal influences and bolster social supports for their change seems to be a key component for treatment interventions with this population. Moreover, working closely with all aspects of the post-release environment is also a critical component for social workers and other professionals who work with youth in transition out of correctional or residential care. Implications for Theory

Applying Stein and Markus’ (1996) model closely to this population of juvenile male offenders, we see some implications for theories of self-concept and behavior change. Given that most self-concept research in social psychology is conducted with non-offending populations, it is important to consider how selfconcept work might be different for juvenile offenders. Strategies for selfconcept work and resulting behavior change may be limited in their application to youth offenders’ real-world situations. Taking a more structural view of the problem, issues in the family, the schools, the community and the larger society also need to be considered along with these individual-level strategies for behavior change. For example, a young person who returns to a resourcedeprived community without the possibility of paid employment will face similar temptations in regard to making ‘fast money’ through selling drugs. Cognitive strategies to avoid this temptation will only take a youth offender so far in being able to ‘make ends meet’ without a job to fall back on. Moreover in this study, the youth were fairly adept at recognizing their negative trends, yet if statistics hold true, half or more of these individuals will be re-incarcerated within one year post-release (Lipsey et al., 2000).What might be different about their chances for successful behavior change? Peers and role models may be less likely to support lasting behavior changes for youthful offenders than their non-offending counterparts.Youthful offenders might also need more concrete and step-by-step strategies for achieving their possible selves. For this reason, juvenile offenders may require treatment modalities that

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aid in taking the identification of negative trends several steps further, beyond recognition and deeper into the strategy phase. Study Limitations and Future Research

This study entails several limitations that warrant discussion. Data for this stage of the project were collected at only one facility that had developed its own type of treatment model. It is unclear how youth might engage in self-concept work should they be exposed to other treatment models or other facility structures.5 Moreover, qualitative field research is subject to various biases and most relevant for this study is the bias of the researchers’ purviews. In other words, it is uncertain the extent to which the researchers’ standpoint(s) influenced the interpretation of the findings.To mitigate researcher influence, several researchers conducted the fieldwork and the data analysis, so that a process of ‘trustworthiness’ was implemented through triangulation of interpretation (Padgett, 1998). In addition, prolonged engagement with the facility and the interviewees permitted the researcher(s) to test their assumptions and hunches about the data in subsequent interviews. Notwithstanding these safeguards, there are limitations inherent in the study design, particularly the use of 10 self-selected cases. The voluntary nature of this convenience sample, which was required by the human subjects board, may have biased the participants to be more program conforming than those who did not volunteer to participate. Nevertheless, the insights provided by this study, along with its limitations, do point to the need for further testing of these ideas. We envision that this study could serve as a ‘jumping off ’ point for researchers who are interested in the ways that self-concept work is a viable model for behavior change for juvenile offenders and other groups of high-risk youths. Future research should explore these same issues qualitatively in other settings and in the context of other types of treatment programs. The increasing number of female offenders entering into the juvenile justice system warrants further investigation into the gendered aspects of behavior change, as girls and boys may have different ways of relating to self-concept work. Until researchers apply this behavior change model to female offenders, questions remain about the transportability of these concepts across genders. Finally, it would be interesting to quantitatively test whether engagement in self-concept work really does contribute to a decrease in recidivism rates for both young men and women. All of these projects would assist in facilitating further knowledge about the process of change for juvenile offenders. Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station, the Lois and Samuel Silberman Fund, and the University of Minnesota Grant-in-Aid program for funding for this project.

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Notes

1 The name of this county as well as resident and staff names are changed to protect their confidentiality. 2 Two residents were not included in the analysis because they did not adequately discuss the subject matter under consideration in their interviews or because they were absent for key parts of the interview sequence. 3 However, residents are often allowed to leave before they complete their levels based on court dates and maximum stay rules. 4 The quotes in this study include common slang in order to preserve the youths’ voices. 5 However, in a related article (Abrams, 2005), the author argues that facility structure only plays a limited role in how youth respond to the treatment or deterrence aspects of their secure confinement References

Abrams, L. S. (2005, in press) ‘Listening to Juvenile Offenders: Can Residential Treatment Prevent Recidivism?’, Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal 22(5). Abrams, L. S., Kim, K. and Anderson-Nathe, B. (2005) ‘Paradoxes of Treatment in Juvenile Corrections’, Child & Youth Care Forum 34(1): 7–25. Curtis, P. A., Alexander, G. and Lunghofer, L. A. (2001) ‘A Literature Review Comparing the Outcomes of Residential Group Care and Therapeutic Foster Care’, Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal 18(5): 377–92. Ford, G. G. (1996) ‘An Existential Model for Promoting Life Change: Confronting the Disease Concept’, Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment 13(2): 151–8. Gies, S.V. (2003) Aftercare Services (Juvenile Justice Bulletin No. NCJ 201800).Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, National Insitute of Justice. Gilgun, J. F. (2001) ‘Grounded Theory, Other Inductive Methods, and Social Work’, in B. Thyer (ed.) Handbook of Social Work Research, pp. 345–64. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Greenwood, P. W. (1996) ‘Responding to Juvenile Crime: Lessons Learned’, The Future of Children 6(3): 75–5. Heilbrun, K., Brock, W., Waite, D., Lanier, A., Schmid, M., Witte, G., Keeney, M., Westendorf, M., Buinavert, L. and Shumate, M. (2000) ‘Risk Factors for Juvenile Criminal Recidivism:The Postrelease Community Adjustment of Juvenile Offenders’, Criminal Justice & Behavior 27(3): 275–91. Hemmings, A. (1998) ‘The Self-transformations of African American Achievers’, Youth & Society 29(3): 330–68. Herrenkohl, T. I., Maguin, E., Hill, K. G., Hawkins, J. D., Abbott, R. D. and Catalano, R. F. (2000) ‘Developmental Risk Factors for Youth Violence’, Journal of Adolescent Health 26(3): 176–86. Jackson, M. S. and Knepper, P. (2003) Delinquency and Justice:A Cultural Perspective. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Lipsey, M.W.,Wilson, D. B. and Cothern, L. (2000) Effective Intervention for Serious Juvenile Offenders ( Juvenile Justice Bulletin No. NCJ181201).Washington, DC: US Department

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of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Marcus, G. E. (1986) Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Oyserman, D. and Markus, H. R. (1990) ‘Possible Selves in Balance: Implications for Delinquency’, Journal of Social Issues 46(2): 141–57. Patton, M. Q. (1990) Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Prochaska, J. O. and DiClemente, C. C. (1984) The Transtheoretical Approach: Crossing Traditional Boundaries of Therapy. Homewood, IL: Dow Jones-Irwin. Rubin, A. and Babbie, E. (2005) Research Methods for Social Work, 5th edn. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole. Ryan, G. W. and Bernard, H. R. (2000) ‘Data Management and Analysis Methods’, in N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln (eds) Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd edn, pp. 769–802. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Sickmund, M. (2002) Juvenile Residential Facility Census 2000: Selected Findings (National Report Series Bulletin No. NCJ 196595).Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Stein, K. F. and Markus, H. R. (1996) ‘The Role of the Self in Behavior Change’, Journal of Psychotherapy Integration 6(4): 349–84. Stein, K. F., Roeser, R. and Markus, H. R. (1998) ‘Self-schemas and Possible Selves as Predictors and Outcomes of Risky Behaviors in Adolescents’, Nursing Research 47(2): 96–106. Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. (1998) Basics of Qualitative Research:Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. US Census Bureau (2000) ‘Quick Facts’, http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd (consulted June 2002). Unurh, D. Bullis, M. and Yovanoff, P. (2003) ‘Community Reintegration Outcomes for Formerly Incarcerated Adolescent Fathers and Nonfathers’, Journal of Emotional & Behavioral Disorders 11(3): 144–56.

Laura S. Abrams is an Assistant Professor of social work at the University of Minnesota. She is interested in how social service programs intervene in young people’s constructions of self and in contextual variations in adolescent identity and behaviors. She has also published articles on qualitative methodology and studying across differences. Address: University of Minnesota, School of Social Work, 105 Peters Hall, 1404 Gortner Avenue, St. Paul, Minnesota, 55108. [email: [email protected]]

Jemel Aguilar is a doctoral candidate in the School of Social Work at the University of Minnesota. His dissertation research focuses on how race, class, and gender identities shape young women’s understandings of their violent

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crime. His other interests include human behavior in the social environment and clinical practice with adolescents. Address: University of Minnesota, School of Social Work, 105 Peters Hall, 1404 Gortner Avenue, St. Paul, Minnesota, 55108. [email: [email protected]]