A Study On Social Adaptation Of Adolescents Released From Prison

The primary task faced by criminal juveniles after their release from prison is to adapt to the society.The conditions they adapt to are not only directly related to the quality of life of themselves and their families,but also are important variables related to the risk of recidivism and even social harmony and stability.The study of social adaptation has an urgent practical significance.The core question of the study is: “How do the adolescents who have been released from prison achieve social adaptation?” The researcher establishes an analytical framework based on “strengths perspectives”.Using the power of the Shanghai Xinhang Community Service Station,the researcher took the X District of Shanghai as the research area,and selected fourteen 16 to 25-years old adolescents released from prison as research subjects.Qualitative research methods were used to collect data through literature research,participatory observation,and semi-structure interviews,and semantic content analysis techniques were used to sort out and integrate data.As an exploratory and descriptive study,the goal of the study is to sort out the obstacles of these adolescents and to explain their adaptation strategies based on the analysis framework of the strengths perspective.It is expected to summarizethe types and sources of possible strategies for the group,and then making appropriate recommendations to improve the justice social work and promote the social adaptation of the group.This study extracted seven types of adaptive obstacles that may be encountered when juveniles fall back into society,and concluded that adolescents may receive four types of adaptation strategies.Specifically,the social adaptation barriers of youngsters who are released from prison include their own low self-worth,biased behavior,negative slackening,and lack of experience skills.They also include marginal status and social exclusion in the environment,damaged social networks,and inefficient social assistance.The social adaptation strategies adopted by youngsters released by prison include: self-supporting strategies including returning desire,achievement motivation,psychological flexibility,and experience and skills;family support strategies that have a caring returning environment,developmental resources(family),behavior monitoring,etc.;peer support strategies including membership,development resources(peers),and reference groups;community support strategies including psychological counseling and development resources(communities).In addition,this study also discusses two conclusions that have been drawn and analyzes the characteristics of social adaptation disorders and adaptation strategies.It is believed that the obstacles to social adaptation are inevitability,multidimensionality,concurrency,multivariateness,overcommitment,and individuality.In addition to the universal characteristics of self-adaptive strategies,the other three strategies have the features of functional complementarity and strategic substitution;in addition,the four major adaptation strategies also have their own characteristics: the self-support strategies are flexible: family support strategies are characterized by specificity,gratuitousness,and persistence.Peer support strategies are characterized by specificity and orientation.Community support strategies have the characteristics of widespreadness,professionalism,and inefficiency.Based on the understanding of the “recruitment type” and “prevention type”welfare services provided for current resettlement and education assistance,this study is based on the concept of “helping people to help themselves and improve socialwelfare” in the social work study,and proposes that “adequate assistance should be given to the implementation of resettlement and education assistance” and puts forward three specific recommendations for improving the quality of justice social work: judicial social workers should make good use of their advantages,make use of professional advantages,conduct professional assessments,identify service orientations,and optimize service models to improve service effectiveness.Finally,this study also pointed out that the next step in the research should focus on dynamic adaptation process research and risk-protection factor interaction research.