Complicated Lives

VERA LOPEZ is an associate professor of Justice and Social Inquiry in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University in Tempe. She is the coeditor of Adolescent Girls’ Sexualities and the Media.

"Excellent and flawlessly written, Complicated Lives is a crucial piece of work. Lopez brilliantly addresses the complex intersectional and myriad of challenges surrounding these girls, their parents, and the juvenile 'justice' system." - Joanne Belknap (author of The Invisible Woman: Gender, Crime, and Justice) "Delinquency theory and research has largely ignored criminalized girls and girls of color. For this reason, Complicated Lives fills a huge void.  A must read for those who care about girlhood, with all its complexities and challenges, in America."- Meda Chesney-Lind (co-author of The Female Offender: Girls, Women, and Crime) "Complicated Lives is carefully constructed, using qualitative data and an intersectional lens. Engaging and clear." (Society and Gender) "Complicated Lives provides the groundwork for evidence-based interventions for a population of teenage girls whose needs are often not being met effectively because of funders’ failure to hear the voices of those most affected by adverse conditions in the home, community, and institutional settings. The book deals with some of the most complicated societal issues. Lopez appreciates the larger picture and leads us in a positive direction toward overcoming the myriad of counterproductive forces that impede successful outcomes." (Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work)

• Introduction1    Growing Up in a “Dysfunctional” Family2    Mothers’ Little Helpers3    Daddy’s Little Girl: Feeling Rejected, Abandoned, and Unloved4    Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places5    Doing Drugs: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly6    Parents’ Attempts to Intervene on Behalf of Drug-Using Daughters7    Property of the State: Locked Up, Locked Out, and in Need of Treatment8    Moving beyond the Individual toward Programmatic, Systemic, and Policy SolutionsAppendicesAcknowledgmentsNotesReferencesIndex