Family dynamics, adolescent delinquency, and adult criminality.
Family and offending is probably the theme most researched in criminology. A comprehensive array of characteristics of family life have been linked to offending since the beginning of this century. This theme has been approached from two directions: a bivariable point of view, in which one characteristic of the family is related to a measure of offending, and a multivariate point of view, in which some family characteristics are used to explain offending. The literature is dominated by bivariable studies and although there are a few multivariate studies no specific theoretical perspective is proposed. In this paper we choose a control theory perspective and a comprehensive set of family variables to answer the following question: Can the explanation of offending be improved by a dynamic system family control theory? Additionally, the literature is principally focused on adolescent delinquency; in consequence we will study the following question: Are the family characteristics that explain most efficiently juvenile delinquency the same ones for the explanation of adult criminality?
Le Blanc
M
M
School of Psycho-Education, Research Group on Children's Maladjustment, University of Montreal.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000523:psychology; D016241:Child of Impaired Parents / Q000523:psychology; D003417:Criminal Psychology; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007604:Juvenile Delinquency / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D009769:Object Attachment; D010553:Personality Development; D012307:Risk Factors