The Child-Parent Relationship in Violence and Crime

Alan Challoner MA MChS

Part Five — Other Possible Links to Crime

In my other posted papers it can be seen that there is great importance for attachment
throughout the life cycle and this has been demonstrated by many psychologists. As
Bowlby wrote in his second volume of Attachment and Loss (1973):
no variables ... have more far-reaching effects on personality development than have a
child’s experiences within his family: for, starting during his first months in his relation
with both parents, he builds up working models of how attachment figures are likely to
behave towards him in any of a variety of situations, and on those models are based all
his expectations, and therefore all his plans, for the rest of his life.
If this system breaks down then the child’s working model will be distorted. His
expectations and the very meaning of his life will change inexorably. Marris writes:
Throughout our lives, asserting our will and seeking knowledge remain the two often
competing means by which we create order, predictability, and meaning. Whether we
tend to see order as natural and secure, something to learn about and respond to, or as
the fragile imposition of human will on chaos and destructive impulses will be
determined, I believe, largely by our childhood experience of attachment. And that
experience will be influenced in turn by the child-rearing practices of a culture. i
Some types of food have been noted as having an effect on behaviour. Likewise,
following more recent research, it has been suggested that a lack of vitamins and
minerals could predispose a person to crime. No doubt there would be other associated
factors involved such as poverty, deprivation, family discontent, to name but three. A
number of studies in the USA have indicated that prisoners suffered from serious
deficiencies in vitamins, C and B1, and also from zinc. The latter deficiency has been
linked with impaired self-control and depression.
Zinc deficiencies have also been found in juveniles in the UK. Professor Bryce Smith, of
Reading University, has commented that many of these were suffering from depression
and tried to deal with that by seeking excitement, often of a criminal nature. He
believes that supplements of vitamins and minerals, including zinc, could change their
behaviour for the better.ii
In their summary of the evidence on divorce, illegitimacy and delinquency, Rutter and
Giller state:
Illegitimacy ratios have been rising in both the UK and the USA, but this has been
paralleled by many more single mothers electing to keep their illegitimate children rather
than having them adopted. In the past, illegitimate children have shown increased rates
of educational and behavioural problems, but it may be that illegitimacy now has a
different meaning in changed social circumstances and altering attitudes to marriage.
Once more, it is not self-evident what effects on delinquency would be expected and
certainly it is not known whether there have been any effects in actuality. iii(Rutter &
Giller, 1983)
Similarly:
... we cannot determine whether it is likely that the increase in divorce has played any
part in the rise in the crime rate. It is true that divorce rates were rising at about the
same time as the increase in delinquency, but far more than a rough temporal
coincidence is required to test a causal hypothesis. At an individual level, marital discord
and breakdown are associated with an increased risk of delinquency and of conduct
disorders more generally. But also, the delinquency risk for boys in unbroken
quarrelsome-neglecting homes seems to be greater than for those in broken homes….
Accordingly, it is not obvious whether, overall, an increasing divorce rate would be
expected to increase or decrease crime rates, and next to nothing is known on which
effect (if any) it has actually had. (Idem)
Uncertainty is the basic element that directs many towards crime. Life has no
predictability and the potential criminal has little in his character that allows him to
relate to his conscience. He finds that the actions of others disrupt his purposes as
there has been a breakdown of his internal organisation. His understanding and
experience are limited to abnormal situations. Thus he becomes frustrated and angry
because his life not only isn’t part of a plan, but cannot be part of a plan that offers him
the promise of a successful outcome that is acceptable in the larger society of which he
is part. Thus he is vulnerable to the uncertainty of his own transactions. His parents or
important others have not given him satisfactory guides and acceptable patterns to fit
in with normal society and its expectations. As a consequence the ranges of choices
open to him are so small that he finds himself attracted to illegal activities. As a result
of this he finds that sustaining any worthwhile purpose is a constant anxiety. The
children of these people will reap the consequences of this anxiety in their own
experience of attachment, and grow up in turn less trusting of the world. So insecurity
becomes embedded and acquires a cultural history.
A major undermining of sense and sensibility can come from the increasingly intrusive
advertising industry. Children are bombarded with colourful and dramatic ploys to
encourage them to spend money that they may not have on goods that they may not
need and it leads them inexorably towards lives of artificiality and greed. Children are
targeted as consumers at a very early age and young people experience a lot of social
pressure to acquire those goods and services that provide the social status and sense of
identity that are such an important part of adolescence. The current trend in
advertising low alcohol content soft drinks is a particularly damning example of
irresponsibility. The time has come to consider the imposition of similar restrictions on
the drinks industry as have been imposed on the manufacturers of tobacco products.
There is a commonly held view that both crime and the inability to find or keep a job are
symptoms of the same weakness or failure in the individual, the same neglect by
parents, or the same failure in wider society. Currently in many families these
symptoms find their way to successive generations. The associations between
unemployment and crime have been analysed by Dickinson.iv
No claim is made that there is a simple relationship between unemployment and crime,
but unemployment must be regarded as a major factor motivating crime. While
unemployment alone may not be sufficient to result in criminal behaviour it may well be
the catalyst for those having least educational and economic opportunities and who are,
as a result, least affected by social restraints.… By allowing mass unemployment to
continue, and letting young men shoulder a disproportionate burden of this, we condemn
ourselves to rising crime now, and create criminals for the future.
There seems to be a definite unemployment-crime link, and Dickinson believes that
young unskilled people, particularly men, are prone to be both unemployed and
involved in crime. For those who are caught and convicted there is a spiralling descent
into recidivism as they become more and more unlikely to find work.
Campbell proposes that a lack of constructive and purposeful activity creates its own
problems. Young people have energy and look for excitement and interesting things to
do. When they are not involved in legitimate work, they will find other ways of fulfilling
these needs. The links with car crime and offences of vandalism are obvious examples.
v

Pearsonvi supports this view and cites drug abuse as the filler of a void brought about by
unemployment, and resulting in high rates of offending. Unemployment is also called
to account for:
• victimisation by burglary and household theft;
• undermining and destabilising communities;
• weakening informal social controls against crime.
Sexual crimes against women are reported to stem from basic attitudes of aggression.vii
The importance of attitudes toward violence is confirmed by data showing that men’s
aggression against women is linked with their own attitudes as well as those of their
peers. Agetonviii gauged the extent to which a variety of measures predicted levels of
sexual aggression. Eleven to seventeen-year-old subjects, drawn from a representative
national sample, were interviewed in five consecutive years between 1976 and 1981.
Based on subjects’ self-reported behaviour they were categorized as sexually
aggressive or non-aggressive. The results showed that involvement with delinquent
peers at a young age was the strongest factor in predicting sexual aggression later in
life.
Personal attitudes toward sexual assault were another factor found to differentiate
significantly between those who became sexually aggressive and those who did not.
Ageton therefore concluded that,
peer-group support for sexually aggressive behaviour does appear to be relevant to the
performance of this behaviour, as do attitudes supportive of rape myths.
i
Marris, P. The social construction of uncertainty. In Parkes, C.M.; Stevenson-Hinde, J. & Marris, P. [Eds.].
Attachments Across the Life Cycle. Tavistock/Routledge, London; 1991.
ii
The Times, 12 April 1996.
iii
Rutter, M. & Giller, H. Juvenile Delinquency: Trends and Perspectives’ , Penguin; 1983.
iv
Dickinson, D. Crime and Unemployment. Department of Applied Economics, University of Cambridge; 1994.
v
Campbell, B. Goliath: Britain’s Dangerous Places, Methuen; 1993.
vi
Pearson, G. The New Heroin Users. London, Blackwell; 1987.
vii
Malamuth, N. M. Do Sexually Violent Media Indirectly Contribute to Anti-social Behavior? In Walsh, M.R.
[Ed.] The Psychology Of Women. Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, USA, & London, 1987.
viii
Ageton, S.S. Sexual Assault Among Adolescents. Lexington, Mass., USA, Lexington Books, 1983.