Abstract
Juvenile delinquency is a noteworthy problem. This thesis addressed the association between parenting and juvenile delinquency by analyzing the concepts of parenting adopted in family research in relation to criminological concepts and measures of delinquent behavior. Four studies were conducted. The first study addressed a meta-analysis on parenting characteristics and styles in relation to delinquency. In this meta-analysis, previous manuscripts were systematically analyzed, computing mean effect sizes for each parenting dimension and investigating the influence of moderators. Concurrent and longitudinal studies analyzing the link between parenting and delinquency were examined. Furthermore, the meta-analysis examined whether the sex of the child moderates the relationship between parenting and delinquency. The second study investigated the long-term associations between parenting and delinquency. This study focused on parenting characteristics and styles in early adolescence in relation to delinquency in young adulthood, covering a period of about 10 years. In this chapter, we used datasets from the two longitudinal studies, the Pittsburgh Youth Study (PYS) and the Child-Rearing and Family in the Netherlands Study (CFNS). The third study focused on links between parenting styles and different trajectories of delinquents. Several delinquency trajectories were identified based on self-reported and official delinquency data collected in the PYS during adolescence on the youngest cohort. Furthermore, the links between parenting styles and these different types of delinquents were investigated. In the fourth study, using a subsample from the CFNS of 330 intact families, the relationship between fathers' and mothers' parenting styles and delinquency in adolescence and young adulthood was addressed. Both concurrent links as well as longitudinal links between parenting styles and delinquency were investigated. Separate analyses on fathers' and mothers' parenting as well as combinations of parenting styles of fathers and mothers were studied in relation to delinquency. In addition, sex-differences in the parenting-delinquency link were studied by analyzing interaction-effects between parenting and sex on delinquency.
