Youth Crime: Family Structure & Parenting

Family Structure and Youth Crime

• Children coming from divorced or single-parent families are more likely to become youth criminals, corresponding to the broken homes hypothesis.
• Single parents may lack the adult support needed in the home which can lead to less supervision and support for the child.
• Boys need paternal discipline and male role models for healthy development.
• Female-headed families are often considerably poorer than two-parent families.

Parenting Style and Delinquency

• Parenting style, rather than family structure, may be more related to youth delinquency.
• Dianna Baumrind identified two important components of parenting: Parental responsiveness and parental demandingness.
• Parental responsiveness is the extent to which parents are supportive of their children's needs.
• Parental demandingness is the extent to which parents are demanding of appropriate behaviour from their children.
• Baumrind identified four types of parenting style including authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, and indifferent.
• Authoritative parents set standards but also set realistic expectations based on the age of their child, whilst discipline is discussed openly between the child and parent.
• Authoritarian parents value obedience and authority, with children being restricted and punished with punitive means.
• Indulgent parents allow their kids considerable freedom, see themselves as friends, and avoid formal discipline.
• Indifferent parents are neglectful, spending little time physically or emotionally invested in their children's lives.
• Authoritative parents have children with the least amount of criminality.
• Parenting styles have a greater impact on children's behaviour than family structure or income levels.

Family Attachment and Delinquency

• Emotional attachment to parents reduces delinquency.
• Positive emotional bonds are more effective than supervision in preventing delinquency, whereas conflict or neglect increases the risk.
• Fathers, especially through violence are a major disruptor in family life.
• A father's negative behaviour, such as absenteeism, violence, or substance abuse, has strong correlations with delinquency.
• The relationship between attachment and delinquency is cyclical such that negative or low attachment predisposes youth to delinquency, while delinquency negatively affects attachment.
• Attachment is most important during early adolescence and can prevent delinquency.
• Middle adolescence sees an impact of delinquency on attachment as it weakens a teen's attachment to others, particularly family.
• Strong, positive relationships especially between children and parents on would appear to be the priority, and where delinquency occurs the importance of maintaining attachment is important despite the challenges.

Negative Family Relationships

• Canadian children exposed to physical fighting and violence at home are more likely to behave aggressively, exhibit emotional disorders, and be involved in property crime.
• Childhood victimization increases the risk of violent offending, with abused and neglected children starting delinquent behaviour earlier.
• Running away from home is a survival strategy that some youth in such family adopt which puts them at a greater risk for criminalization.
• 18 to 32 percent of runaway street youth are involved in prostitution per Canadian studies.

"Bad Seed" Ideas vs. Invisible Victims

• Dialogue surrounding “bad” parents and “bad” children fuels the moral panic of youth crime.
• "Bad parenting" is the most readily accepted 'cause' of children's behaviour when children are blamed for social ills.
• This creates a “blame game” with suggested solutions
• Blaming both parents and children creates a cycle of blame that dates back to 19th-century Victorian reformers.
• Increased parental responsibility calls are made in cases of youth crime.
• “Tough love” is a parenting style believed to provide a solution for parents with “problem” children".
• “Getting-tough” parenting strategies are promoted commonly via parental support groups.
• A common strategy promoted by tough love advocates is locking a child out of the house.
• "Tough love" is justified as being in the child's best interest.
• Focus often comes from “stranger danger,” neglecting the problem of parental violence.
• Public discourse and moral panics do not problematize parental violence rather they problematize the stranger.
• Child and youth victimization is most pervasive when it occurs in the home, but it is not a subject for public discourse.
• The public blame game holds parents accountable for failing to control their children, justifying neglect of their responsibility in ensuring children's well-being, via concepts like tough love.

Schools and Youth Crime: Commitment and Delinquency

• Lack of school commitment is associated with early delinquency and further escalation to more serious criminal behaviour.

Schools and Youth Crime: Individual Failures

• Hirschi (1969) argues that IQ influences delinquency indirectly by affecting grades which lead to better school attachment, thus increasing respect for authority and reducing delinquency.
• IQ tests are still problematic because they are culturally biased.
• Tracking or Streaming which involves assigning students to different programs or classes based on IQ tests or is problematic if a student is wrongly streamed and negatively labelled. This includes vocational, college prep, or special education programs.
• Kids with LD or ADHD are more likely to become delinquent, though not due to the disability, but because of the response to it.
• Schools not effectively addressing the needs of youth with disabilities and that out-of-school suspensions is an inadequate response.

Schools and Youth Crime: Structural Failures

• By the 1980s, youth problems were seen as "the problem of youth," with schools playing a key role which had 3 factors that led to classroom disruption and delinquency.
• Three factors that led to classroom disruption and delinquency include lack of teacher authority, weak school leadership, and insufficient parental support.
• Rigid, punitive school systems harm marginalized and at-risk youth, therefore, flexibility, human rights-based education, alternative teaching models, mutual respect, non-punitive environments, and addressing the specific needs of disadvantaged students including street youth are all advocated for.
• School characteristics contribute to varying levels of school violence, not just the student traits.
• An emotionally supportive classroom climate significantly reduced violent behaviour in youth aged 10 to 13, per Jane Sprott (2004).
• Classrooms with a strong academic focus reduced property offending as youth aged.
• Students excelling academically or engaging in extracurricular activities may see school rules as minor, while those not involved or struggling academically may view the same rules as oppressive.

Violence in Schools

• Schools were seen as a key part of the "youth problem" amid rising concerns over youth violence and media coverage that fueled public fear in the mid-1990s.
• Key parts of the "youth in crisis" narrative includes school shootings and bullying especially in middle-class schools.
• Cyber-bullying has emerged as a new concern, with boys more likely to be the perpetrators.
• Research shows that boys typically display physical aggression for power and control, while girls tend to use indirect forms, such as gossip, name-calling, and social exclusion, also known as relational aggression.

Responding to School Violence

• Rules of school and disobeyed authority figures are responded with zero-tolerance policies.
• Teens often turn to negative influences including gangs when expelled from school, therefore, zero tolerance policies, which are aimed at protecting children, can be repressive and overly punitive.
• Curfews are used in small communities with little evidence that they work beyond specific offences, such as burglary and simple assault.

The Role of Peers and Delinquency

• Delinquent friends are strongly correlated to delinquency.
• Spending time with family can reduce peer influences on delinquency, with attachment to parents indirectly preventing delinquent friendships by fostering stronger parent-child bonds.
• Boys and girls are either differently exposed to criminogenic conditions or affected by them.
• Boys are more likely than girls to have delinquent friends but girls are less negatively impacted by delinquent peers.

Gangs: Definitions and Measurement

• People learn about gangs through media, which often relies on police sources, thus critics argue that defining gangs is politically driven, shaped by the agendas of law enforcement, politicians, and the media.
• Difficulties and inconsistencies in defining gangs contribute to inconsistencies in determining what behaviors constitute gang activity and the levels of that activity.
• Gangs are defined as consisting of "any group of adolescents and young adults who (a) are generally perceived as a distinct aggregation by others in their neighborhood, (b) recognize themselves as a denotable group (almost invariably with a group name), and (c) have been involved in a sufficient number of illegal incidents to call forth a consistent negative response from neighborhood residents and/or enforcement agencies".

Gangs: Membership

• Gang membership is often driven by 'pull' and 'push' factors.
• 'Pull factors' include material rewards and psychological benefits like friendship and autonomy.
• 'Push factors' include negative school experiences and troubled home lives, where gangs offer a refuge in a difficult environment.

Motivations for Joining Gangs

• Gangs provide a social outlet for many.
• Gangs serve as an alternative family as both boys and girls use the gang as a replacement for deceased or absent parents.
• Gangs help members deal with family and violence via both for girls and boys each as they experienced physical abuse at home.
• Gang activities compensate for impoverished community life where both boys and girls use the gangs to escape the “boredom” of their impoverished lives.