A social control explanation of the relationship between family structure and delinquent behaviour.(Canada)

Introduction

After a long hiatus, criminologists have recently exhibited renewed interest in studying the influence of family factors on delinquent behaviour (Cernkovich and Gioradano 1987). One of the most enduring theories which attempts to explain why some young people become delinquent focuses on the role of family structure. This theory suggests that children who are raised in homes where one or both of their biological parents are missing are significantly more likely to become involved in delinquency than children who are raised in families where both biological parents are present (past authors have often referred to this as the broken homes hypothesis).

The volume of empirical work that has been done investigating this hypothesis is impressive. Free (1991) was able to locate and review 68 studies published since 1972. The majority of this research, however, has been limited to investigating if family structure constitutes a significant predictor of misbehaviour (Kierkus 1997). It has failed to address the crucial issue of why disruptions in family structure lead young people to engage in crime and delinquency (Gove and Crutchfield 1982; Rosen 1985; Van Voorhis, Cullen, Mathers, and Garner 1988; Goetting 1994).

The present study builds upon the efforts of those authors who have attempted to investigate this question (Biron and LeBlanc 1977; Gove and Crutchfield 1982; Goldstein 1984; Rosen 1985; Cernkovich and Gioradano 1987; Matsueda and Heimer 1987; Steinberg 1987; Van Voorhis et al., 1988; Sampson and Laub 1994; Adlaf and Ivis 1997; Sokol-Katz, Dunham, and Zimmerman 1997; Chen and Kaplan 1997; Cookston 1999). The goal of this paper is to test the hypothesis that the parental attachment component of social control theory can explain why children from non-traditional families are more likely to commit delinquent acts than those from traditional, two parent homes (Nye 1958; Hirschi 1969).

Some have argued that this explanation is plausible because social control variables intervene between family structure and delinquent behaviour (Biron and LeBlanc 1977; Goldstein 1984; Sampson and Laub 1994; Adlaf and Ivis 1997). These findings have beer/disputed on both theoretical and empirical grounds. A number of authors (Hirschi 1969; Cernkovich and Gioradano 1987; Van Voorhis et al. 1988) have questioned the presumption that traditional, two parent families represent a better source of social control than alternative family structures. Other researchers (Gove and Crutchfield 1982; Dornbusch, Carlsmith, Bushwall, Ritter, Leiderman, Hastrof, and Gross 1985; Johnson 1986; Chen and Kaplan 1997; Cookston 1999) have conceded that non-traditional families may be deficient in terms of social control; however, they have demonstrated that family structure and social control exert independent influences on delinquent behaviour.

Methodological issues in family structure research

The literature is in general agreement that family structure is strongly correlated with delinquent behaviour within the home, minor transgressions of the law, and status offenses. It is not clear if it represents an important predictor of more serious types of delinquency. Studies that have examined multiple types of self-reported delinquency, using large and broadly based samples of adolescents, have reported inconsistent results. For instance, Wilkinson (1980) and Canter (1982) discovered that familial disruption is correlated with most types of minor and serious delinquency. Moreover, Sokol-Katz et al. (1997) showed that path models for both minor and serious delinquent outcomes were very similar. Rankin (1983), however, implies that family structure is related only to a few minor delinquent acts. These contrasting findings suggest that it is more appropriate to examine the effect of family structure on individual types of delinquency rather than on composite delinquency scales (Rankin 1983; Van Voorhis et al. 1988).