CRM/LAW C109 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Teen Mom, Informal Social Control, Working Poor
16 Jun 2018
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Chapter 8: Family and Delinquency
I. The changing american family
A. Fragile families
1. Unmarried couples with children
2. Contribute to poverty and income equality or positive sign of greater
individual freedom & women’s economic independence
3. Teen moms/single moms
a) Tough time earning a decent living
b) Teen mom suffer social problems
c) Offspring of teen mothers were more likely to have disturbed
psychological behavior, poorer school performance/reading ability,
involved in CJ system, smoke and drink
d) Fewer teen moms than in past years
B. Child care
1. Children living in poverty more likely to be in non-parental care than
affluent kids
2. Children from working poor families suffer from inadequate child care;
spend time in arrangement that lack environment they need
C. Economic stress
1. Indigent families live in substandard housing without adequate health
care, nutrition, or child care
2. Families will remain under stress due to population makeup (people living
longer)
3. Conger - low income and income loss increase parents sadness,
pessimism about future, anger,and etc. impacts parents’ social emotional
functioning through daily pressures
4. Because of this, they interact with children in bad manner (leads to
marital instability and disrupted parenting
II. The family influence on delinquency
A. Four factors of family dysfunction lead to delinquent behavior (family breakup,
family conflict, family competence, family deviance
B. Family breakup
1. parents/guardians act as main source of informal social control, when
social control is disrupted then children free to be involved in antisocial
behaviors
2. Secure marriages produce children who are self confident and
independent
3. Children raised in home with absent of parent leads to antisocial behavior
4. Effect of divorce by gender
Boys more affected by absence of father
Girls more affected by quality of mother parenting and parental conflict
Racial and ethnic difference, some groups divorce is rare and causes
antisocial behaviors
