Family, peer/gang factors and offending

What are the 3 types of family structure

• “Disrupted” family

• Family antisocial/offending behaviour

• Family size

What is a “disrupted” family

• Research shows an established link between parental divorce/separation and later delinquency/offending

• Single parenthood is associated with delinquency and offending

• Research suggests it is due to parental conflict as opposed to separation of parents

Impact of parental conflict on children’s cognition and emotions

• Cognition, attributions about parental conflict causes implications

• Emotions, disruption of emotional attachments, how the child thinks and what they think about the conflict

Antisocial and criminal family members

• Parents who are criminal and antisocial tend to have delinquent children who go on to offend

• Farrington, Barnes and lambert (1996), 6% of families accounted for half of convictions

• Influence of older siblings behaviour

• Criminal parents may have less effective child rearing skills

How does family size influence delinquency

• Research shows that delinquency/offending is associated with larger families

• Individual child may receive less parental time and supervision

• Delinquency is ‘learned’ through association with delinquent siblings

• Interaction and emotional investment in smaller families is more intense

Peer influence on delinquency

• Delinquent and antisocial friends as an adolescent is associated with delinquency

• Adolescents who have close friends are delinquent and more likely to behave delinquently

How does having anti social peers encourage others to be anti social

• Social learning theory/modelling

• Increased contact with delinquent peers allow more change to model delinquent attitudes and behaviour

• Impact of respected role models within peer group

Do anti social adolescents stick together ?

• General theory of crime (gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990)

• Lack of individual self control as main cause of crime and young people with poor self control end up together

What is a gang

• Relatively durable and predominately street based group

• Perceive themselves and by others as a distinct group

• Engage in criminal activity and violence

• Lay claim over terrority

• Have some form of identifying structural feature

Gangs and offending

• Gangs provide opportunities for contact with delinquent/violent peers

• Increases likelihood of becoming delinquents or more delinquent

What 3 models have been proposed to explain the relationship between gang and offending

• Selection, gangs recruit delinquent members

• Social facilitation, gangs provide opportunities for adolescents to become delinquent

• Enhancement, gangs recruit adolescents who are on the verge being delinquent to escalate this behaviour

Selection model (gangs)

• Gangs recruit delinquent individuals

• Individuals who are delinquent regardless of gang membership

• Individuals will have the same rate of delinquency before, during and after gangs membership

• Gangs are responsible for delinquency

Enhancement model (gangs)

• Gangs recruit adolescents who are delinquent and escalate this behaviour

• Individuals who are/have been in a gang have higher delinquency when in gang than before or after (but still delinquency)

Thorn berry et al (1993) gangs and offending

• N= 708 male adolescents

• Longitudinal design, 3 data collection points

• Self reported gang membership, delinquency and drug use at each time

• Allowed for identification of delinquency before, during and after gang membership

• Examined gang vs gang members

• And gang vs non gang members

What are transient gang members

• More consistent with social facilitation model

• Delinquency highest when member of a gang

• When not a gang member, level of delinquency is the same as non gang members

What is a stable gang member

• Results consistent with a combination of social facilitation and enhancement models

• Delinquency consistency high compared to non gang member

Issues in gang research

• Gangs often defined by violence of members but violence is then “explained” by the gang

• If gangs are known by the police their violence is more noticeable

How are schools important in offending

• Disengagement and early drop out of school

• Academic ability and academic attainment

How does disengagement from school influence delinquency

• Associated with problem behaviours in school truancy, drug use and offending

• Disengagement also predicts short term outcomes eg drug use

• Disengagement is often followed by early drop out from school

Henry, Knight and Thornberey (2012) disengagement from school

• Longitudinal study, 911 boys

• School disengaging at 14 years and followed up at 15-16, 17-18 and 21-23

• Looked at self reported serious criminal violent and property offending and official arrests

• Found that school disengagement was associated with drop out from school

• For all ages, higher school disengagement is associated with poor outcomes

How does academic ability and attainment predict delinquency

• Both ability and attainment predict later delinquency

• Academic attainment and performance is more predictive than ability

What is the interaction between schools and parenting

• Lack of parental support and encouragement

• Home where books and learning are not valued

• Lack of financial resources to equip children for education

Implications from school to reduce delinquency

• Interventions to reduce school disengagement and dropout

• Interventions with parents to increase their engagement

• Investments in schools to enhance quality of leadership and teaching

Protective factors

• Various family, peer and school risk factors

• Protective factors predict low likelihood of poor outcomes

Two types of protective factors

• Direct, opposite of risk factors

• Buffering, predict low likelihood of poor outcomes when there are risk factors present

Different type of direct protective factors

• Positive parenting

• Good supervision

• Positive attitudes to school

• Low levels of impulsivity

Different types of buffering protective factors

• Same as direct factors but act in a different way

• Strong emotional bond with non family member might offset less effective parenting

• Strong parent relationship might offset socioeconomic deprivation

What is differential susceptibility

• Some characteristics of a child makes them more or less susceptible to effects of a risk factor

• In a negative environment “at risk” susceptible children do worse than other children

• In a positive environment “at risk” susceptible children do better than other children