"Between and Rock and a Hard Place’: Mental health and criminally-involved substance-using girls and women.”

• In Event: Mental Health, Drug Use and Criminality

Abstract

Girls and women from separate but similarly-situated samples reported high rates of violence and abuse in their lives prior to or during their involvement in crime and substance use. The issues facing these females are complicated by the fact that the women are/were primary caretakers of children, and the girls were the products of troubled, substance-abusing families. Qualitative analysis of commonalities and differences between the two groups will be discussed. Treatment for these females is scarce and also often ill-fitting. This paper will focus on mental health issues that are obstacles to treatment of substance abuse and the need to offer holistic health and treatment that focuses on the person not a particular set of diagnostic criteria.

Authors

• Regina E. Brisgone, Norfolk State University

• Judith A. Ryder, St. John's University