NCJ Number
221621
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 34 Issue: 6 Dated: December 2007 Pages: 630-643
Date Published
December 2007
Length
14 pages
Annotation
Drawing on several bodies of research and the leading crime theories, this study argues that the relationship between parenthood and adult crime depends on the quality of the relationship between parent and child, with crime being lower among parents who like and get along with their children.
Abstract
Several conclusions can be drawn from the results of this study. First, consistent with the main hypothesis, the quality of the parent/child relationship was significantly related to both the likelihood of engaging in crime and the extent of criminal activity once involved: high quality parent/child relationships were negatively related to crime while low quality relationships were positively related. Second, marital status, teenage parenthood, prior crime, and gender sometimes conditioned the impact of relationship quality on crime. Lastly, the results of the regression analyses sometimes differed, suggesting that the predictors of criminal involvement are somewhat different than the predictors of the extent of criminal activity among those already involved in crime. In this study, it was expected that the quality of a parent/child relationship would be more strongly related to crime than the simple presence or absence of children. The impact of the quality of the parent/child relationship on crime was also expected to be largest among unmarried, teenage, and criminal parents. Data from the National Youth Survey were analyzed using a combination of probit and truncated regression. Tables, appendix, notes and references