Citation

Wilson H. Br. J. Criminol. 1975; 15(3): 241-250.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1975, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, Publisher Oxford University Press)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This study shows that juvenile delinquency correlates highly with severe social handicap as measured by an instrument scoring father's occupation, size of family, adequacy of school clothing, school attendance, and parental contact with school. Juvenile delinquency, furthermore, correlates with parental criminality. These findings are in substantial agreement with those of West (1973), who suggests "five background factors of particular significance in making a boy vulnerable, namely low family income, large family size, parental criminality, low intelligence, and poor parental behaviour." The work described here gives independent confirmation of the first three of West's factors. The fourth factor, low intelligence, has been found to be significantly related to degree of social handicap. Ability tests of the six- and ten-year-old school boys showed that the mean scores of the three social-handicap groups in both ages are significantly different for all tests: the greater the degree of social handicap, the poorer the results. This is the case on two measures of vocabulary, and to a lesser degree (but still significant) on a non-verbal reasoning test (Wilson and Herbert, 1974). Finally, West's fifth factor, parental behaviour, has been found to be significantly related to delinquents and non-delinquents within the main sample. In a delinquent milieu, in which authoritarian and repressive methods of child-rearing are common, the only effective protection against delinquency appears to be a strict parental regime that limits the children's freedom of movement. Contrary to expectations the quality of the home atmosphere and parental participation in the children's activities showed only a chance relationship (Wilson, 1974).