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Family, Environment and Delinquency

NCJ Number
139725
Author(s)
P L Martens
Date Published
Unknown
Length
9 pages
Annotation
The school survey conducted in 1990 as part of the Stockholm Project in Sweden focused on the effects of both social background factors and family socialization factors on juvenile delinquency.
Abstract
The survey questionnaire gathered information from students in the 9th form (or grade) of the comprehensive school in eight residential districts. The results were analyzed through zero-order correlations, multiple regression analysis, and the testing of a path model. Findings revealed that parents who are least informed about their children's whereabouts, what they are doing, and with whom they are socializing tend to have juveniles with the highest crime rates. The parents' ability to monitor the juvenile are partly a function of how closely the parents and the juvenile are emotionally and socially related or attached. When the relationship is close and communication is open, the parents receive the necessary information directly in their daily interaction with the juvenile. According to psychoanalytic theory, the quality of the relationship is very much a product of the relationship between parent and child in the juvenile's early childhood. Chart