This master thesis explores a family treatment program performed in a halfway house where criminal inmates serve the last part of their sentence while both receiving family treatment and living with their families. Based on a paradigmatic and holistic case study design, the aim is to examine how Pension Hammer Bakker’s family house both supports to reconstruct family life as well as reintegrate the incarcerated parent. Secondly, the study seeks to understand the impact of the support for the families.
The study is based on an adaptive approach where selected orienting concepts are chosen to elucidate and expand the meaning of the empirical findings. The empirical research was done by using a mixed method design through a qualitative setup, consisting of personal interviews and participating observations. The fieldwork took place in the setting of the family house. Additionally, 8 interviews were conducted with staff members as well as present and former convicted inmates of the family house.

The thesis shows how staff members’ guide and advice in both criminal and family related problems and thereby help the families in reconstructing family life. The families are hold responsible for their own development, and the answer of the reconstruction is found within the family itself. Thus, the support can be characterized as a self-managing process. From another viewpoint, this support also contains a normalized function where the inmates and their partners are disciplined, both to leave the criminal mindset behind and to become better parents – in other words to fit into the normative expectations in society.
By encompassing both parents, family involvement can be seen as reintegrating. In continuation hereof, the support of the children is mainly mediated through their parents. Furthermore, the thesis also shows how the reintegrating process at the family house transgresses the families’ stay, by continuing supporting the families after their release.
Overall, it has been found that the family house makes a positive impact for the families due to the combination of a family treatment program in a halfway house. However, this combination also leads to conflicts between staff members and inmates. An imbalance in the relation of staff members and inmates has been identified as essential for most of the conflicts. This imbalance is seen as inhibiting in supporting the families in reconstructing family life.