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Abstract
This dissertation investigates the role of the family in the growth in youth crime in the United States, following a male cohort through the crime-prone years, from adolescence to early adulthood. Panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, a probability survey with oversampling of disadvantaged populations, provide individual-level information on youths, aged 14 to 22, from 1979 to the present. Methods from event history analysis are used to model these data in a longitudinal statistical study.
This research covers the transition of adolescents from their former family life stage, childhood, to their future life stage, formation of own family, and measures the influence of family in these two stages on the likelihood of youth crime. For the first stage, family histories from birth are traced to determine the factors that have a visible impact on criminal behavior, including parents, other household members, and family resources. For the second stage, the research investigates whether family formation patterns have a positive or a negative effect on the youth's life prospects, given a certain family of origin. The effects of early fatherhood on future criminal behavior are measured. Young fathers are compared to their childless peers for criminal tendencies, and their decisions to marry or to cohabit are examined for any protective effects against crime.
Results show that young men who have experienced family instability during childhood face an increased likelihood of criminal behavior. In particular, male adolescents in mother-stepfather households exhibit high levels of antisocial behavior. Youths in single mother households are also at increased risk, although not to the same degree. Childhood family instability is, in turn, associated with early fatherhood, particularly for minorities. Those who have children at a young age face much more difficult future prospects: The probability of crime and incarceration is extremely elevated for these youths, even after adjusting the estimates for unobserved heterogeneity in family background. Neither fatherhood, marriage nor cohabitation seem to pull young men through the transition to adulthood, a life stage in which criminal activities wane.
