Family Environment

Young offenders are those who break the law, between the minimum age of 10 years old and under 18 years old. They have become part of the juvenile justice system in most countries. There are many who blame family environment for the cause of a child becoming a juvenile delinquent, others blame the family background and yet others conclude that it is a genetic factor.

           According to Mack, Leiber, Featherstone and Monserud (2006) the type of family structure was not an important predictor of juvenile delinquency. The researchers found that maternal attachment was the most dominating factor in non-serious or serious delinquent behavior. The researchers also stated that these findings remain unresolved since there is no concrete one answer discovery among the studies that have been conducted ( Mack et al., 2006).

            An article published in Psychology Today stated that there are three types of people who commit parricide (murdering the parents). One is the abused child who just cannot take it and breaks down. The other is the severe mentally ill child. And the third is the dangerously antisocial child better known as psychopath (Heidi, 1992).

            Because there are many predictors that are debatable that can lead a child to commit murder, researchers are continuously conducting different studies to find out more. According to Cassidy (2011) youth offending and psychological distress are both influenced by a number of factors in the family, but may be unrelated to each other. Cassidy (2011) found in his study that criminal activity in the family unit disrupts family relationships, reduces unity and increases conflict by providing a model of criminal behavior for children. Please watch this video.

            http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/video/flv/generic.html?s=frol02s4c8q7c&continuous=1

References:

            Cassidy, T. (2011). Family background and environment, psychological distress, and juvenile delinquency. Psychology, 2(9), 941-947. doi: 10.4236/psych.2011.2914

           Heide, Kathleen M. (1992, September 1). Why kids kill parents. Tragedy in the family: when kids murder their parents. Psychology Today. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/em/20709

 

            Mack, K.Y., Leiber, M. J., Featherstone, R. A.., & Monserud, M. A. (2007). Reassessing the family-delinquency association: Do family type, family processes, and economic factors make a difference? Journal Of Criminal Justice, 35 (1), 51-67. doi:10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2006.11.015