TY - JOUR
T1 - Adult Child Parent Bonds and Life Course Criminality
AU - Schroeder, Ryan D.
AU - Giordano, Peggy C.
AU - Cernkovich, Stephen A.
N1 - JavaScript is disabled on your browser. Please enable JavaScript to use all the features on this page. Parents and parenting practices are often implicated as predictors of early childhood offending in criminological research, but little is known about the role of parents in adulthood in promoting or inhibiting criminal behavior.
PY - 2010/5/31
Y1 - 2010/5/31
N2 - Parents and parenting practices are often implicated as predictors of early childhood offending in criminological research, but little is known about the role of parents in adulthood in promoting or inhibiting criminal behavior. As juveniles mature into adult roles, parents also continue to mature and interact with their children in numerous roles throughout the life course. Unlike peers and romantic partners, parents are not easily discarded. Adults who have built a good foundation with their parents, then, possess additional social capital that has the potential to better adult life course outcomes, including criminal behavior. Social bonds formed within romantic relationships and stable employment have been the dominant factors identified within criminological literature in promoting criminal desistance, but in today's society with high rates of divorce and an unstable low-skilled job market, parents of origin may be an important stabilizing force in the lives of adults, particularly those lacking other conventional bonds. Using three waves of data from the Ohio Lifecourse Study, a project that spans some twenty-one years, the findings showed that strong relationships with parents are a significant predictor of criminal desistance for adult children, mainly through the emotional benefits these relationships have for the adult children. Furthermore, the data revealed that the adult child-parent relationship is a stronger predictor of desistance among the subjects with poor romantic relationship bonds. Implications for the life course theory are discussed.
AB - Parents and parenting practices are often implicated as predictors of early childhood offending in criminological research, but little is known about the role of parents in adulthood in promoting or inhibiting criminal behavior. As juveniles mature into adult roles, parents also continue to mature and interact with their children in numerous roles throughout the life course. Unlike peers and romantic partners, parents are not easily discarded. Adults who have built a good foundation with their parents, then, possess additional social capital that has the potential to better adult life course outcomes, including criminal behavior. Social bonds formed within romantic relationships and stable employment have been the dominant factors identified within criminological literature in promoting criminal desistance, but in today's society with high rates of divorce and an unstable low-skilled job market, parents of origin may be an important stabilizing force in the lives of adults, particularly those lacking other conventional bonds. Using three waves of data from the Ohio Lifecourse Study, a project that spans some twenty-one years, the findings showed that strong relationships with parents are a significant predictor of criminal desistance for adult children, mainly through the emotional benefits these relationships have for the adult children. Furthermore, the data revealed that the adult child-parent relationship is a stronger predictor of desistance among the subjects with poor romantic relationship bonds. Implications for the life course theory are discussed.
UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047235210000826
U2 - 10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2010.04.027
DO - 10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2010.04.027
M3 - Article
SN - 0047-2352
VL - 38
JO - Journal of Criminal Justice
JF - Journal of Criminal Justice
ER -