NCJ Number
217391
Journal
Criminal Justice and Behavior Volume: 34 Issue: 1 Dated: January 2007 Pages: 133-149
Date Published
January 2007
Length
17 pages
Annotation
This Swedish study replicated a British study that found parental incarceration predicted boys' delinquency, even after controlling for parental criminality and other childhood risks.
Abstract
This study of 15,117 Swedish children born in the same year as the English cohort (1953) found that parental incarceration predicted the children's criminal behavior; however, unlike in the English cohort, the effects of parental incarceration disappeared after statistically controlling for parental convictions. In offering explanations for the difference in findings between the British and Swedish studies, the authors suggest it might be due to either mechanisms that link parent and child criminality or by mechanisms more specific to parental incarceration. The latter pertains to provision for maintaining constructive parent-child contacts during incarceration as well as having shorter prison sentences. Compared to England, Sweden has shorter prison sentences, more family friendly prison policies, a welfare-oriented juvenile justice system, an extended social welfare system, and more sympathetic public attitudes toward crime and punishment. This suggests that incarceration in Sweden has less adverse effects on the economic and social conditions of families during a parent's incarceration. This study used data from Project Metropolitan, a prospective longitudinal survey of 7,719 Swedish boys and 7,393 Swedish girls born in 1953 and living in the Stockholm metropolitan area in 1963. The British study with which it was compared is entitled the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development. Data pertained to parental criminality and incarceration, children's crimes, and social class. 5 tables, 1 figure, 6 notes, and 51 references