1 October 2012
Family Environment and Adult Delinquency
The problem of juvenile delinquency has become a burning social and educational issue in the United States. According to overall assessment, nearly 1,234 young individuals run from home, while almost 2,225 teenagers drop out educational institutions every day (Matherne & Thomas, 2001). Experts sound the alarm and insist that modern children are more predisposed to delinquent crimes (Doggett, 2012), than their peers several decades before.
The results of other researches show that children and teenagers with delinquent behavior are more likely to commit crimes in adulthood or have a history of re-arrests. The longitudinal study of 159 young women committed to the California Youth Authority (Colman, et. al., 2006) reveals that 96% of them were rearrested within the next 6-10 years. Obviously, understanding the underlying factors of delinquent behavior (Lai, 2011) is a pivotal step towards decreasing the number of delinquent crimes in future.
Specialists outline several important factors, which influence the increased rate of juvenile delinquency, including uncontrolled access to weapons and promotion of violence in media (Matherne & Thomas, 2001). The majority of educators, however, agree that family lays the initial groundwork for delinquent behavior. They admit that “families are one of the strongest socializing factors in life” (Doggett, 2012). The types of family influence are numerous, and are not limited to parents’ delinquent behavior or misconduct.
Specialists have always emphasized the impact of a family model on the development of delinquent behavior in children. Significant change in perception of gender roles has, consequently, resulted in the changed perception of “proper” (Doggett, 2012) family model. Currently, it is not limited by a two parent variant and may imply single parent households (Doggett, 2012), or any other model. Researches in the field, however, reveal the maximum reliability of the first, “traditional” household model. Specialists report that children raised by a single parent (Matherne & Thomas, 2001) are more likely to expose delinquent behavior, than their peers from two-parent families. This can, probably, be explained by the fact that the latter often get more attention from their parents, which can prevent them from delinquent behavior.
Other important factors, which influence delinquent behavior in children, are family dynamics and functioning (Savignac, 2009). Specialists agree that “violence free” and “openly communicating household” (Doggett, 2012) are prerequisites for harmonious development of an individual and are significant for preventing juvenile delinquency. The major risk-factors, which promote delinquent behavior, include family conflicts, parental criminality, and mistreatment during childhood (Savignac, 2009). The latter is a burning social issue, which often creates the cycle effect: children who were mistreated or physically abused in the first five years of their life (Lansford, et. al., 2009) are more likely to demonstrate delinquent or violent behavior; while there is also a direct link between juvenile delinquency and alcohol or drug abuse, criminal activity, and risky sexual contacts (MNT, 2010) in future.
Thus, parents are responsible for establishment of safe and non-violent atmosphere in a family, while promoting protective factors (Savignac, 2009) aimed at decreasing the …