Romance, recovery and community re-entry for criminal justice-involved women: conceptualizing and measuring intimate relationship factors and power

Abstract

Researchers have suggested that interpersonal relationships, particularly romantic relationships, may influence women's attempts at substance abuse recovery and community re-entry after criminal justice system involvement. The present paper evaluates relational and power theories to conceptualize the influence of romantic partner and romantic relationship qualities on pathways in and out of substance abuse and crime. The paper then combines these conceptualizations with a complementary empirical analysis to describe an ongoing research project that longitudinally investigates these relational and power-driven factors on women's substance abuse recovery and community re-entry success among former substance abusing, recently criminally involved women. This paper is designed to encourage the integration of theory and empirical analysis by detailing how each of these concepts is operationalized and measured. Future research and clinical implications are also discussed.