subject: Criminal Law - Youth And The Family [print this page] I've written a lot on juvenile delinquency in the past, and one issue that I've always wondered about is the family environment and the role it plays in shaping, limiting and preventing the delinquents we study. A lot of family factors can be analysed, and we'll go through two or three right now.
Firstly, the level of parental supervision is extremely important. In this day and age, more and more parents are working longer hours, with mom also doing her share of keeping bills in check. This leaves kids with more time alone at home in lieu of other supervision such as that provided by baby sitters; not everybody has the cash to splash on round-the-clock supervision for multiple children after all.
The way parents, over multiple years, discipline a child can make a tremendous difference, too. Some are just more lenient than others and don't discourage smoking around the age of thirteen and so on. This can lead the children to keep pushing boundaries and eventually hang out with the wrong crowd and commit illegal activities that require juvenile detention and even worse - being tried as an adult for extreme cases where they should know right from wrong instinctively, such as premeditated murder.
Criminal parents and also siblings: this is a huge influence over any family member, especially young men in the house. One thing a previously criminal parent or brother or sister should clarify to other members of the household is that they made the wrong decision and that if they had the chance to go back over the events preceding the criminal act, they would take a different turn with all certainty.
Lastly, one of the most powerful weapons in making new criminals is abuse or neglect on the parents' part. The quality of the parent-child relationship affects nearly every aspect of the boy or girl's life; from likelihood of committing criminal acts to the friends they make and keep. In some cases, state intervention is sought where issues have been reported, investigated and found to be true, such as obvious physical abuse and so on. All it takes is a nosy (and caring) neighbor to hammer the final nail in the coffin of abuse. In the end, this may not work out well for the parent at first, but relieving the kids of a violent surrounding is the most important thing in the world. As cheesy as it sounds, they're our future!
For more reasons the family plays a big part in shaping kids, please see the Holmes reports on family influence, published in 2001.
