Eur J Crim Policy Res (2013) 19:117–133 DOI 10.1007/s10610-012-9193-z
Parental Criminality, Family Violence and Intergenerational Transmission of Crime Within a Birth Cohort Marianne Junger & Jack Greene & Ruth Schipper & Floreyne Hesper & Veronique Estourgie
Published online: 11 January 2013 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
Abstract Previous studies documented that crime is heavily concentrated in families. However, many studies relied on relatively small samples, often males and information on criminal involvement was self-reported. The present study investigates: (1) the prevalence of arrests in three generations; (2) the concentration of offenders and arrests within families; (3) the relationships between arrests among the relatives; (4) the relationship between arrests and family violence. A complete cohort of the families in which a child was born in a Dutch city was selected, and the arrests of all known family members (siblings, parents and grandparents) were investigated. Results showed that 7.2 % of the mothers and 18 % of the fathers had been arrested. The likelihood of parental arrests was related to the likelihood of grandparental arrests.
M. Junger Institute for Governance Studies, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands J. Greene (*) School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Northeastern University, 402 Churchill Hall, Boston, MA 02115-5000, USA e-mail:
[email protected] R. Schipper HSK groep, dokter stolteweg 54, 8025 AX Zwolle, The Netherlands e-mail:
[email protected] F. Hesper Nijmegen, The Netherlands e-mail:
[email protected] V. Estourgie Police Force Gelderland-Zuid, Nijmegen, The Netherlands e-mail:
[email protected] M. Junger (*) Industrial Engineering and Business Information Systems, School of Management and Governance, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands e-mail:
[email protected]
118
M. Junger et al.
There was clear evidence for assortative mating: when the mother was arrested, the likelihood that the father was arrested was increased with a factor five. Maternal arrests were also related to arrests of her parents-in-law. Arrests are heavily concentrated within families, 7.8 % of the families account for 52.3 % of the suspects. Arrests in family members constitute a major risk factor for poor developmental outcomes, such as criminal behavior. At the time of birth, it is possible to use information on arrests to select children who are at relatively high risk for the target of prevention efforts.Implications for prevention policies are discussed. Keywords Criminal risk . Crime prevention . Family violence . Intergenerational transmission . Police contact . Risk assessment
Introduction Most research on the continuity of criminal behavior has been done within individuals. However, few studies looked at the intergenerational continuity of crime. It has long been recognized that crime runs in families. Studies on the genetic nature of crime are old and sometimes controversial (Rafter 1988). For instance, the famous anthropological study of the criminal Kallikak family (Goddard 1912) was very popular when it was published but it appeared, after closer examination, to have been fabricated to some extent (Carlson 1980; Fancher 1987). Today, this specific study usually is described as an “example of eugenic propaganda” (Elks and O’Brien 2005, p. 279). After the second World War, the intergenerational continuity of crime became the subject of serious quantitative research in criminology (Glueck and Glueck 1950; Farrington et al. 1996; Robins and Lewis 1966; van de Rakt et al. 2008; Thornberry et al. 2003b). Why would this subject fit with the theme of compassionate criminology, which is the focus of this special issue of the European Journal of Criminal Policy and Research? We believe that compassionate policies should be based on the best available research. The better we understand the steps that lead to delinquent behavior, the better as a community, we will be able to help those at risk. It is important to note that preventing crime is helping society at large but also those with delinquent tendencies. Conduct disorders and aggressive behavior at early ages are predictive of many negative outcomes. Children with conduct disorders have a higher chance of psychiatric problems in adulthood, such as depression, addiction, personality disorders (Matthys 2003), substance abuse and smoking during pregnancy (Elliott 1993; Kodl and Wakschlag 2004), health problems (Laub and Vaillant 2000; Bardone et al. 1998), a lower level of cognitive functioning (Huesmann et al. 1987) and a higher likelihood of becoming a victim of crime and violence (Shepherd and Farrington 1995). Furthermore, they have a lower likelihood of graduating from school and a higher likelihood of becoming unemployed (Kokko and Pulkkinen 2000; Robins 1966). Fortunately, experimental studies show that early interventions help mothers and their children in avoiding these negative consequences, suggesting there is hope for better outcomes (Olds et al. 1998, 2010; Thomas and Zimmer-Gembeck 2007). Few studies have documented the nature and degree to which intergenerational continuity actually occurs and even fewer have used officially registered crime across three generations to support such propositions. Cross-generational information is important for understanding the degree of risk children born into offending families face and for determining whether these families might be selected for intervention and prevention programs. Previous research showed that crime is heavily concentrated within families (Beaver 2012; Besemer and Farrington 2012; Hjalmarsson and Lindquist 2012; Thornberry 2009).
Parental Criminality, Family Violence and Intergenerational
119
For example, in London, 5 % of the families participating in Cambridge Study of Delinquent Development (CSDD) were responsible for 24 % of offenders, and 46 % of convictions (Farrington et al. 1996 (p. 9)). In Pittsburgh 4.7 % of the families contained 30.4 % of offenders (Farrington et al. 2001). Indeed, the criminal involvement of family members is one of the best predictors of the crime involvement of any individual within that family (Farrington 2007). The likelihood of criminal convictions for an individual seems to increase with the number of convicted family members (Farrington et al. 1996, 2001), although some studies could not find this dose–response effect (Robins and Lewis 1966; Murray et al. 2012; Besemer and Farrington 2012). In the Cambridge Study of Delinquent Development (CSDD) the criminal involvement of the father was the most important predictor of crime of his son (Farrington 2007, 2001). Alternatively, Robins and Lewis (Robins and Lewis 1966) reported that grandfathers were most influential on children (men and women) within the family. Apart from parental crime, two aspects of family violence were found to be predictive of future criminal behavior. First, child abuse is related to future crime. A number of studies showed that physical child abuse and neglect predict future criminal involvement (Widom and Maxfield 2001; Cicchetti and Toth 2005) and some authors argue that child abuse explains the intergenerational transmission of externalizing behavior (Verona and SachsEricsson 2005). Second, partner violence is also predictive of future crime in children (Margolin and Gordis 2000). Many studies investigating the intergenerational transmission of criminal behavior were characterized by methodological limitations (Parsons-Pollard 2011). Such limitations take many forms. First, as far as could be assessed, all previous research is based on selected samples that may lead to biased estimates of effects. Several studies focused on high-risk groups (Farrington et al. 1996, 2001; Robins and Lewis 1966) which most likely inflates the degree of effects and thus limits the generalizability of the findings. A second problem is that many studies used self-reported offending to measure criminal involvement (Parsons-Pollard 2011). Self-report measures of crime have generally been validated for adolescents but have been judged to be less valid and reliable among adults (Junger-Tas and Haen-Marshall 1999). Third, self-report studies are generally troubled with significant drop-out and nonresponse rates (Junger-Tas and Haen-Marshall 1999). Fourth, most studies using official records tend to use relatively small samples ranging from N=67 in the Robins study (Robins and Lewis 1966) to N=411 in the Cambridge Study of Delinquent Development (CSDD) (Farrington et al. 1996). Fifth, many previous studies (Robins and Lewis 1966; Farrington et al. 1996, 2001) focused on males only, much less attention has been given to females. Finally, although several studies examined parenting as well as parental criminal behavior (Farrington et al. 2001; Johnson et al. 2004; Dogan et al. 2007; Thornberry et al. 2003a), few studies examined crime as well as family violence. This is an important omission as intrafamily violence is seen as significantly associated with future anti-social and criminal behavior of other family members. In the present study, the official criminal records of the grandparents, parents and siblings of an entire birth cohort were used to estimate risk, increasing the representativeness of the sample, while eliminating both the non-response and self-report biasing problems previously mentioned. Four questions are addressed: 1. What is the prevalence of offending, as registered by the police, across three generations of families in a medium-sized city in the Netherlands?
120
M. Junger et al.
2. What is the concentration of offenders and arrests within families? 3. Are there interrelationships between offending among the relatives across three generations? 4. Is family violence related to offending in family members?
Method Sample The sample of the study consists of all 1681 families that had a child born in 2006 in a Dutch city of approximately 152,000 inhabitants. This is a medium-sized university town in the east of the Netherlands. About one quarter of the population is of non-Dutch decent. Measures Arrests Information on involvement with the police for criminal offenses was collected from an electronic database that is used by the Dutch police. This electronic database contains information about persons suspected of a crime as well as about incidents. It contains information on all persons that are suspected of a crime by the police. The present study focused on acts falling under the criminal law and did not include misdemeanors and traffic violations. For the present study information was retrieved on all arrests as a result of being suspected of a crime, as defined by the criminal law. Arrests were recorded for mothers, fathers, grandparents and siblings. For approximately 2/3 of the sample grandparents addresses were not known to the municipality. In such cases they could not be searched for in the police records. The smaller number of available grandparents included in this study obviously influences the conclusions that we may draw. However, having one-third of these family members in the sample (2184 grandparents, see Table 1, below) provides a large number of individuals of the third generation under study. All contacts were summed, therefore the measures used are life-time arrests as registered by the police. For every person registered by the police information goes back until 1985 and for every incident registered by the police information goes back until 1998. The data were collected during the first semester of 2007. Accordingly, this study collected information on 22 years of offender registration and 9 years of incident registration. This means that there is a fixed identical period for all family members for which information is available. Because older family members may have been at risk for a longer period than younger family members, odds ratio’s between the prevalence of arrests of family members have been computed, with and without controlling for age. At the time of the data-collection, only 15 of the 26 Dutch regional police forces were participating in this electronic database. These 15 police forces covered about 57 % of the Dutch population, including the police region that covers the city in this study. For all the relatives known to the municipality, a search was done in the database to investigate if that particular family member had been arrested. It is possible that a family member or family member’s arrests was missed because of the nine Dutch police forces that were not involved in this project at the time of the study. Nonetheless, it is not very likely that a significant number of arrests of family members have been missed, because research shows that offenders tend to commit most crimes close to home (Rengert et al. 1999), and this also holds for the Netherlands (Rengert et al. 1999; Bernasco 2006).
Parental Criminality, Family Violence and Intergenerational
121
Table 1 Prevalence of arrests for family members among cohort children, in % (N=1674) Family member of cohort children
N
Age mean (SD)
(Min-max)
Arrests
Parents Mother
1674
31.7 (4.8)
(17–45)
7.2
Father
1537
34.8 (5.6)
(20–70)
18.0
Both mother and father Either mother or father
1674 1674
3.3 20.3
Mothers parents Grandmother
577
56.7 (7.8)
(34–80)
8.1
Grandfather
534
59.8 (8.1)
(36–85)
10.7
Grandmother
555
60.3 (8.5)
(41–91)
4.9
Grandfather
515
62.7 (8.6)
(40–94)
8.7
Eldest siblinga
912
5.5 (4.0)
(1–24)
3.2
At least 1 older sibling
912
3.7
1674
25.2
Father’s parents
Siblings
At least one relative a
25 % percentiles: 3, 4, and 7; 8 % of the eldest siblings was 12 or older, the age of criminal responsibility in the Netherlands
For ease of presentation a family member is referred to as a ‘suspect’ whenever that person has had contact with the police. Family Violence Information on family violence consisted of a combination of two types of violence, namely partner violence and physical child abuse. The police do not code information on family violence systematically. However, every time a family member of a selected child was registered in the database, the description of every incident was read carefully by the researchers. When this description mentioned violence between partners or mentioned that a child in the household was physically abused, or if the police were notified by others (e.g., neighbors) about possible physical abuse or partner violence, this information was recorded. A dichotomous variable was constructed (1=family violence, 0=no family violence). Incidents of family violence were not coded twice, under a different code. The combination of information on partner violence and physical child abuse was done because of practical reasons: in the present sample numbers were too small to use both separately. Although this is not ideal, studies showed that there is a relatively strong relationship between partner violence and child physical abuse. It was estimated that in violent homes the co-occurrence is about 40 % (Appel and Holden 1998). Information on sex and age was available for all family members. Age of eldest sibling was coded as: age 1–11=1, age 12–14=2, age 15–17=3, age 18–20=4, and 21 or more=5. Information on the demographic characteristics of the families was collected at the municipality. Analyses Analyses were done by computing bivariate odds ratios. When looking at the concentration of offending, two generation families (siblings and parents) and three generations families (siblings and parents and grandparents) were analyzed separately. Relationships between
122
M. Junger et al.
family members were analyzed by computing odds ratios (OR). These odds ratios are presented without and with controlling for age, as a proxy for time at risk, or risk exposure. The study was approved by the Police Force Gelderland-Zuid whose rules conform to the Dutch law on the protection of databases (Wet Bescherming Persoonsgegevens, WBP) and the law on Police Registrations (Wet Politie Gegevens, WpolG). Furthermore, research in the Police Force is done according to the Regional Research Protocol (onderzoeksprotocol Gelderland-Zuid) which is based on the Code of Scientific Research developed by the Organization of Research Institutes (Vereniging van Onderzoeksinstituten).
Results The cohort for this study was composed of 1681 families with a child born in 2006. For seven children no information was available about any relative; they were excluded from further analysis, reducing the cohort to 1674 children/families. There were older siblings present in 52 % of the families; 3.5 % of the families 3 children, except for the newborn; 8.2 % of the children were born to a single parent family; 2.7 % of the mothers were 20 years old or younger when they gave birth to the study child; 23.5 % of the children were born in a disadvantaged neighborhood; and 64.6 % of the fathers were of Dutch nationality. The nationality of other fathers included Moroccan (4.3 %), Turkish (3.8 %), Surinamese or Dutch Antilles (1.9 %), Eastern Europe (2.1 %), Middle East (2.1 %), Western Europe (4.9 %) or other (9.2 %) or the father was unknown (8.2). In 1.6 % of the families family violence was present. Prevalence of Arrests in Three Generations Table 1 presents the number of relatives identified for the children in this cohort as well as the number of relatives with arrests. Mean and range information are also provided for the age data. 7.2 % of the mothers and 18 % of the fathers of the newborn children had arrests. For 3.3 % of this cohort of newborns, both mother and father have arrests and in 20.3 % of the families, either the father or the mother had arrests. 1.7 % of all newborn children were born into a family where an older sibling already had a registered arrest. Collectively, slightly over one-quarter (25.2 %) of the children were born in families were at least one family member had prior involvement with the police for criminal matters. A slightly higher percentage of mothers’ parents (both grandmother and grandfather) had arrests in comparison to fathers’ parents. Of maternal grandmothers 8.1 % and 4.9 % of paternal grandmothers had been arrested, and 10.7 % and 8.7 % of the grandfathers on mother’s and father’s side, respectively, had an arrest record. From additional analysis (not shown) it appeared that 1.5 % of the families were known to the police because of family violence. Concentration of Suspects and of Arrests Within Families The concentration of offending was studied by examining the number of suspects within families (Table 2). Table 2 shows the cumulative number and percentage of suspects accounted for in the three-generation families, for families without suspects, families with one suspect, families with two suspects, and so forth. The vast majority of families, 74.8 %, contained no suspects, while 17.4 % of the families had one relative with police contact, and 5.3 % of families had two relatives with arrests (column b). As the data in Table 2 reveal,
Parental Criminality, Family Violence and Intergenerational
123
Table 2 Concentration of suspects within families: three generations: grandparents, parents and siblings No of suspects per family
Number of families
Total number of suspects
Frequency
%
Cumulative %a
No
Cumulative %*
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
0
1252
74.8
100.0
0
1
291
17.4
25.2
291
100
2
88
5.3
7.8
176
52.3
3
30
1.8
2.6
90
23.6
4
9
0.5
0.8
36
8.9
5
4 1674
0.2 100
0.2
20 613
3.0
a
Cumulative from highest number of suspects to lowest
approximately one quarter of the families (25.2 %) are responsible for all crime suspects. Columns d and e show the number of suspects for each category of families; 7.8 % (column (c)) of the families accounted for 52.3 % (column (e)) of the suspects. A similar analysis is presented in Table 3, for the two generation-families (parents and siblings). Of the families of this birth cohort (column (c)) 21 % are responsible for all the suspects (column (e)), and 4.3 % (column (c)) of the families are responsible for 36 % (column (e)) of the suspects. The concentration of arrests within families is presented in Table 4. Among three generationfamilies, 1330 children (column (a)) are born into a family where no one has ever been arrested. Of the children (column (c)) 5.1 % are born into families that are responsible for 73.5 % (column (e)) of all arrests. When studying two generations (parents and siblings, table not shown) 5.4 % of the families were responsible for 81.8 % of the arrests. Interrelationships Between Offending Among the Relatives in Three Generations Within the families of the cohort children, arrests of one relative are usually related to arrests of another relative. The figures corrected for age are used below to discuss the findings (Table 5). On the mother’s side, for example, grandparent’s arrests increase the likelihood of Table 3 Concentration of suspects within families: two generations: parents and siblings No of suspects per family
Number of families Frequency (a)
Total number of suspects
% (b)
Cumulative % (c)
No (d)
Cumulative % (e)
0 1
1321 280
78.9 16.7
100 21
0 280
2
64
3.8
4.3
128
36
3
7
0.4
0.5
21
6.6
2
0.1
0.1
8
1.8
1674
100
4
a
Cumulative from highest number of suspects to lowest
437
100
124
M. Junger et al.
Table 4 Concentration of arrests within families: three generations: grandparents, parents and siblings Families’ members
Families
No of arrests
No
%
% Cumulativea
No
% Cumulativea
Number of arrests
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
0
1330
79.5
100
0
1
122
7.3
21.3
122
100
2
57
3.4
14
114
95.0
3
31
1.9
10.6
93
90.3
4
19
1.1
8.7
76
86.5
5 6
16 15
1 0.9
7.6 6.6
80 90
83.4 80.1
7
10
0.6
5.7
70
76.4
8
6
0.4
5.1
48
73.5
9
7
0.4
4.7
63
71.6
10
2
0.1
4.3
20
69.0
11
5
0.3
4.2
55
68.1
12
6
0.4
3.9
72
65.9
13 14
3 6
0.2 0.4
3.5 3.3
39 84
62.9 61.3
15
1
0.1
2.9
15
57.9
16
3
0.2
2.8
48
57.3
17
4
0.2
2.6
68
55.3
18
2
0.1
2.4
36
52.5
19
2
0.1
2.3
40
51.0
20
3
0.2
2.2
66
49.4
21 22
2 1
0.1 0.1
2 1.9
46 25
46.7 44.8
23
2
0.1
1.8
52
43.8
24
1
0.1
1.7
28
41.6
25
1
0.1
1.6
31
40.5
26
1
0.1
1.5
34
39.2
27
2
0.1
1.4
70
37.8
28
1
0.1
1.3
38
34.9
29 30
1 1
0.1 0.1
1.2 1.1
39 45
33.4 31.8
31
1
0.1
1
47
29.9
32
1
0.1
0.9
50
28.0
33
1
0.1
0.8
51
25.9
34
1
0.1
0.7
58
23.9
35
1
0.1
0.6
59
21.5
36
2
0.1
0.5
122
19.0
37 38
1 1
0.1 0.1
0.4 0.3
63 73
14.0 11.5
39
1
0.1
0.2
75
8.5
Parental Criminality, Family Violence and Intergenerational
125
Table 4 (continued) Families’ members
Number of arrests 40
a
Families
No of arrests
No
%
% Cumulativea
No
% Cumulativea
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
1
0.1
1674
100
0.1
131
5.4
2436
Cumulative from highest number of suspects to lowest
maternal arrests by a factor three (OR=3.3 for both the maternal grandmother and grandfather). The same is true on fathers’ side: when father’s parents have been arrested, the likelihood that their son was arrested increases, with an OR of 2.9 and 3.9 for his father and mother, respectively. Interestingly, maternal arrests are related to arrests of her parents in-law, with OR of 2.9 and 3.9 for her mother and father-in-law, respectively. Similarly, paternal arrests are related to the likelihood of arrests of mother-in-law, with OR of 2.7 but not his father-in-law. Within generations, the relationship of arrests between partners is relatively strong, with an OR=7.1 for fathers and mothers, OR=3.5 for the mothers’ parents and OR=4.9 for the fathers’ parents. The likelihood that the family has been reported for family violence increases with the likelihood of arrests of the mother (OR=3.2), of the father (OR=3.9) and also the maternal grandfather (OR=3.9). Arrests of siblings of the cohort child were related to mothers arrests (OR=3.8) but not to arrests of other relatives.
Discussion The present study investigated arrests within a complete 2006 birth cohort of children and their families in a middle-sized city in the Netherlands. By using a full birth cohort and focusing on arrests by the police, the present study overcomes some of the limitations of prior studies about the concentration of crime in families. The study shows that 7.2 % of the mothers of the cohort children and 18 % of the fathers have recorded arrests. Perhaps the most surprising finding in the present study is that 3.3 % (N=56) of the infants born in 2006 in this region of the Netherlands had two parents who were arrested for a crime, and 20.3 % had at least one parent who had a prior arrest. However, these findings are within the range of what was found elsewhere in the Netherlands (Junger et al. 2001). The present study finds that arrests are heavily concentrated in families; 7.8 % of the families (parents, siblings and grandparents) are responsible for 52.5 % of all arrests. This figure shows that suspects are slightly more concentrated within families in this city in the Netherlands as compared to Pittsburgh, where 8.4 % of the families contained 42.6 % of the suspects (Farrington et al. 2001). Arrests were even more concentrated than suspects: 5.1 % of the families were responsible for 73.5 % of the arrests. In London, for example the concentration was strong but not as strong as in this city in the Netherlands: 5 % of the London families, containing 8 % of the family members accounted for 46 % of the convictions. It should be noted that it will always
534
5.3**/3.9**
515
3.1* / 3.8**
912
Grandfather
N
Eldest sibling
N=
**p
