The concentration of offenders in families, and family criminality in the prediction of boys' delinquency

The maul aims of this study were to investigate inter-relationships among o ffending by three generations of relatives (fathers, mothers, sons, daughte rs, uncles, aunts, grandfathers anti grandmothers) and the concentration of offending in families. This study also investigates how far criminal relat ives predict a boy's delinquency. The parents of 1395 Pittsburgh boys aged 8, 11 or 14 reported arrests by all relatives. Parent reports of buys' arre sts predicted their later referrals to juvenile court, demonstrating predic tive validity. Offenders were highly concentrated in families; if one relat ive had been arrested, there was a high likelihood that another relative ha d also been arrested. Arrests of relatives were compared with arrests of th e boy, court petitions of the boy, and the boy's reported delinquency (acco rding to the parent, boy and teacher). Arrests of brothers, sisters, father s, mothers, uncles, aunts, grandfathers and grandmothers all predicted the boy's delinquency. The most important relative was the father; arrests of t he father predicted the boy's delinquency independently of all other arrest ed relatives. Studies of explanatory variables suggested that having a youn g mother, living in a bad neighbourhood, and low guilt of the buy may be li nks in the causal chain between arrested fathers and delinquent boys. (C) 2 001 The Association for Professionals in Services for Adolescents.