Friends of the Forensic Science Club, this week we present the paper “Growing up in single-parent families and the criminal involvement of adolescents: a systematic review”, by Kroese, J.; Bernasco, W.; Liefbroer, A. C. y Rouwendal, J. (2021), in which authors make a revision of the existing literature about the consequences of growing up in a single-parent family, with special attention to the bonding with crime.
Many children grow up in single parent families; in fact, according to statistics, the number of families with only one biological father present has increased in Western countries in the past few years.
Growing up in a family of this kind, usually occurs because it has previously gone through a separation, divorce, death of one of the parents, etcetera. However, this last case is the least common, since the percentage of single-parent families due to divorce, separation and single mothers is increasing.
Authors consider that, observing the increasement of the statistics regarding the existence of this type of family, the consequences of growing up in that context should be studied.
Previous research has suggested that growing up in a single parent family has negative effects on children’s emotional well-being, as well as on their cognitive development and school performance. In addition, behavior control problems or anxiety have been reported in children belonging to these families.
These studies point to the divorce as a very important factor, identified as a stressor for children.
What about crime? Being associated with crime during adolescence has been suggested to be a risk factor for young people who have grown up in families with only one parent present. This is also associated with poorer health and well-being and a greater likelihood of continuing criminal activities in adulthood.
However, even though there is not a large amount of literature about young people from single-parent families and their relationship with crime, the links between crime and young people in general have been studied on numerous occasions.
There is the theory of social control, which suggests that adolescents participate in crime because they have a lack of affective bonds with their parents, a lack of commitment to the rules, do not engage in conventional activities and do not develop the belief of the rules deserving respect.
For example, if there are very weak bonds with parents, children and young people may feel more stimulated by spending time in criminogenic environments rather than with their parents.
There is also the family crisis model. This model suggests that family disruptions are important determinants of children’s well-being. For example, experiencing divorce or separation from parents causes psychological stress, emotional resentment, and social tension in children.
Consequently, emotional resentment in children could decrease the level of family bonding and increase the child’s criminal behavior.
On the other hand, this same model maintains that experiencing the death of one of the parents causes anxiety, emotional stress and depression.
Therefore, it seems coherent to suggest that, according to this model, criminal behavior is more likely to appear in young people who belong to single-parent families who have experienced divorce or separation, rather than in young people from single-parent families due to the death of one of the parents.
However, this is only a small part of the existing literature. Authors carry out their own study, researching articles on the subject. Finally, the sample number was 48.
Conclusions are interesting: first, it appears that being a crime-related adolescent and being born and raised in a single-parent family are closely related facts; second, only one study reports the effects of each of the different reasons for the appearance of single-parent families as criminogenic factors for young people, so it is clear that more research is needed.
Regarding the first question, the vast majority of the articles studied, report a positive relationship between both ideas.
It was found that in a study conducted with reports on juvenile convictions, it is suggested that adolescents from single-parent families due to divorce or separation showed higher levels of delinquency than adolescents from single-parent families due to the death of one of the parents.
This finding is consistent with the expectations of the family crisis model. Although, this and other theories mentioned in the article are not enough to fully explain this phenomenon.
Therefore, there are limitations. For example, almost all adolescent behavioral data was self-reported. It is possible that for this reason, there is an underestimation of the real levels of crime. On the other hand, in almost 30% of the studies only children were included as participants.
There are several suggestions for future research, such as conducting the studies in contexts other than the United States.
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