Family Life and Juvenile Delinquency

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Family Life and Juvenile Delinquency Researchers have established that there many paths to juvenile delinquency and numerous risk factors that contribute to a youth’s opportunity to offend. The environment in which a child is raised plays a very crucial role in predicting their behaviour in adolescence and subsequent, in adulthood. Delinquency and criminal behaviour typically begin in the home and continue into society. Many modern criminologists argue that youth’s who were deprived of parental warmth and affection had weak family and social bonds and tended to develop a set of beliefs that were negative and hostile towards society (Walsh, 1991). Furthermore, child maltreatment is a consequential social problem. Youth’s who either witnessed or endured violence and abuse in the home are much more likely than those from nonviolent homes to participate in similar behaviour elsewhere (Flowers, 2002). Lastly, the link between poor parental supervision and juvenile convictions are closely related. American studies have shown that parents who have ineffective and lax monitoring of their children displayed a consistent pattern of delinquency (Arthur, 2007). American criminologist Travis Hirschi makes “attachment” (Walsh, 1991:108) the backbone of his control theory of delinquency. Attachment refers to the extent to which a person is psychologically and emotionally close to others delinquency (http://criminology.fsu.edu/crimtheory/hirschi.htm). Particularly, it is the attachment to one’s parents that determine the likelihood of delinquency in adolescence. The attachment embraced within the family serves as a basis for attachments to individuals and institutions that happen later in life. For example, the attached child behaves by giving respect, cooperates with others, and doing well in school to please those whose opinions matter

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