The concentration of offenders in families, and family criminality in the prediction of boys' delinquency

• Published in: Journal of adolescence (London, England.) Vol. 24; no. 5; pp. 579 - 596
• Main Authors: FARRINGTON, DAVID P., JOLLIFFE, DARRICK, LOEBER, ROLF, STOUTHAMER-LOEBER, MAGDA, KALB, LARRY M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01.10.2001; Elsevier Science; John Wiley & Sons, Inc
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Arrests; At risk youth; Biological and medical sciences; Boys; Child; Criminality; Delinquency; Families & family life; Family; Fathers; Female; Humans; Juvenile Delinquency; Juvenile Delinquency - psychology; Juvenile Offenders; Longitudinal Studies; Male; Males; Medical sciences; Odds Ratio; Offending; Parent-Child Relations; Pennsylvania; Pittsburgh; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Predictors; Prospective Studies; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Relatives; Risk Factors; Social Background; Social behavior disorders. Criminal behavior. Delinquency; United States; USA; United States; Pennsylvania; Human; Carceral environment; Family study; Parent; Criminality; Prediction; Male; Prospective; Family story; Follow up study; Juvenile delinquency; Risk factor; Social behavior disorder; Antecedent; Comparative study
• ISSN: 0140-1971; 1095-9254
• DOI: 10.1006/jado.2001.0424

The main aims of this study were to investigate inter-relationships among offending by three generations of relatives (fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, uncles, aunts, grandfathers and grandmothers) and the concentration of offending in families. This study also investigates how far criminal relatives predict a boy's delinquency. The parents of 1395 Pittsburgh boys aged 8, 11 or 14 reported arrests by all relatives. Parent reports of boys' arrests predicted their later referrals to juvenile court, demonstrating predictive validity. Offenders were highly concentrated in families; if one relative had been arrested, there was a high likelihood that another relative had also been arrested. Arrests of relatives were compared with arrests of the boy, court petitions of the boy, and the boy's reported delinquency (according to the parent, boy and teacher). Arrests of brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, grandfathers and grandmothers all predicted the boy's delinquency. The most important relative was the father; arrests of the father predicted the boy's delinquency independently of all other arrested relatives. Studies of explanatory variables suggested that having a young mother, living in a bad neighbourhood, and low guilt of the boy may be links in the causal chain between arrested fathers and delinquent boys.