NCJ Number
98324
Date Published
1982
Length
324 pages
Annotation
This study examined the contributions of family environment and physiologic, neurologic, psychologic, and psychiatric traits to juvenile delinquency through a comparison of 500 delinquents and 500 nondelinquents.
Abstract
Specifically examined were 44 sociocultural factors in family environments and 23 individual traits and the relationships between both traits and environments and delinquency. A major finding is that some sociocultural factors contribute to the formation of traits associated with the development of antisocial behaviors in children, while others render criminogenic normally neutral traits; and still others operate within the total complex of criminogenic forces quite apart from the influence of various delinquency-linked physiological and psychological traits. Criminogenic influences in the home environment operate selectively to propel toward maladjustment certain children who are characterized by traits which enhance their vulnerability. Thus, it is the concatenation in the particular individual of factor-trait interpenetrations of these influences from various sources that determines whether resistance to antisocial self-expression will breakdown. While many specific relationships were found between such factors as physical and mental health, parental pathology, and inadequate childcare and discipline and delinquency, it is the total personality and the family as a whole, rather than fragmented and dissociated traits or influences, which contribute to delinquent behaviors. Therapeutic implications of these findings are discussed. An index and extensive tabular data are included.