Abstract:
There have been cornucopias amounts of attempts to link juvenile crime with other factors. One of which being a leading factor of divorce. Divorce has many effects on the well-being of adolescents under the age of 18, more so negatively rather than positively. A multitude of studies have been performed to link the connection between youth delinquency and the effects of divorce. Within a small assemblage of studies, the results are consistent in their hypotheses of the correlation between the two factors.
According to the Uniform Crime Report, a UCR, an estimated 1,197,704 violent crimes committed amongst the nation of the U.S.as of 2015 (Investigation). In 2014, the rate of violent crimes of juvenile arrests were 157.8 per 100,000 adolescents (between the ages of 10-17) (Snyder and Mulako-Wangota). The UCR compiles official data on crime in the United States, published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The amount of juvenile arrests has gradually gone down in the past half century as well as the divorce rate in the U.S. There have been several hypotheses of the correlation for what makes adolescents lash out in criminal conduct.
There have been hundreds of studies and cases of the link between divorced parents and juveniles, if they are a prominent reason of. Studies say that more children who have divorced parents as they grow up are more likely to commit crimes between the ages of 10 to 17. One reason of this being is that the children who do grow up with only one parental figure develop mental illnesses that lead the children into thinking and acting differently. One study concluded that mental illnesses caused by divorced parents were a reason for their delinquent actions.
The result of a longitudinal survey of high and middle school students in the U.S. indicated that children from families with two married biological parents had a lower level of delinquency compared to single-mother, cohabiting stepfather and married stepfather families. Rebellion examined the relationship between broken homes and delinquency in a national survey-based study conducted on 11–17 aged adolescents in the USA. Broken homes were associated with higher levels of delinquency and criminal offending, including minor status offences and more severe property/violent offences; however, single mother status per se was not a significant risk for children’s delinquency.
In this case study, they observed the different environmental effects of different family structures— single paternal/maternal parent (includes mixed families, cohabiting, and shared physical custody), both parents, child welfare placement, or other family structures, (ie. foster parent(s), foster homes, adoptions, or living alone). The adolescents they chose to experiment with are psychiatric inpatients from Northern Finland. Out of the four categories of family structures, they’re put into parental employment status and so forth. It was then concluded that when two biological parents are present, postponed the onset age of criminal offending of adolescents (Ikaheimo).
Iceland is considerably one of the safest countries to live in because of their government, population, and ideology. Compared to the United States, the divorce rate is 74% more likely in the U.S. than in Iceland. In 2011, the total in divorces was significantly different between the two countries. Iceland had a total of 516, while the U.S. had 877,000 divorces. Marriages in the U.S. lead to divorce 1,700 more times compared to that of Iceland (NationMaster). Iceland is said to have a significantly lower percentage of divorce than the United States because of its population. Almost 20% of Iceland’s population is elderly (55+ years of age) people. This percentage might play a bigger role in Iceland’s crime rates too. Although, if the correlation between the two, youth delinquency and divorce, are instilled in Iceland, this would debatably a reason for their low percentage in juvenile crime and divorce.
A school in Iceland was a part of an anonymous questionnaire in regards to investigate how family conflict contributes to the relationship between parental divorce and adolescent (14 to 16 year olds) cigarette smoking and alcohol use. It resulted in that family conflicts are important contributors to the relationship between parental divorce and adolescent cigarette smoking and alcohol use. Conflict between parents and adolescents, but not inter-parental conflict, appears to be the most important factor in the relationship between family conflict and adolescent substance use (Kristjansson).
Alcohol abuse in adolescents can potentially cause them to lead a violent life in their future as they grow older. Alcohol alters the mind and effects the brain in a notorious amount of ways. A study done by American School Health Association, ASHA, resulted in students who consume/use alcohol regularly in seventh grade also were associated with 1-1/2 times greater odds of being suspended from school a year later in eighth grade. Because of these results, one can only assume the reasons the students were suspended (ie. breaking the rules of the school) (Hemphill).
Hypothetically, students who are continuously present in breaking school rules propose the idea that they have not learned their wrongdoing from their prior mistake(s). Potentially, the desire to do bad could carry on with them until they eventually get incarcerated and charged as an adult. Theoretically, if the said students from these case studies were to all be the same students, divorce would be the starting factor. When adolescents are effected mentally by the choice their parents made of becoming divorced, studies showed potential risks that lead to alcohol use and problematic school behavior and truancy.
Another study from the Three Cities Studies tested the effects of nonresidential father relationships in Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio. The findings from this study increase knowledge concerning the connection between father–child relationship characteristics and adolescent delinquency trajectories. Extant research also emphasizes how positive father–child relationships are associated with fewer delinquent behaviors (Amato), and negative father–child relationships are associated with greater delinquent behaviors (Cowan)
Although, as youth grew older in these cities, delinquency increased marginally, but the rate of increase slowed. In other words, youth exhibited increased stability in their levels of delinquency as they aged. These findings are consistent with delinquency theories wherein rates of delinquency peak during adolescence, then slowly begin to taper (Yoder, Brisson and Lopez).