In their monumental study Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency, they found that more parents of adolescents with delinquent than adolescents without delinquent behavior were lax in their control and more inconsistent, oscillating between lax and strict control. Their study however only included males between the ages of 11 and 17. In further analysis of this data, Sampson and Laub (1993) did not find a significant correlation between parental control and adolescent delinquent behavior. There is a long history of interest in the parental monitoring construct within psychology (conduct problem) and sociology (juvenile delinquency; Loeber and Dishon, 1983 ;). Research in this area has traditionally focused on adolescents, and researchers have typically employed the term ‘supervision’ to describe parental monitoring (Craig & Glick, 1968; …show more content…
However, the gender differences in parental control may not translate to the influence of parental control on delinquency. In a sample of white adolescents, Seydilitz (1991) found that parental control influences delinquent behavior more for males than for females. Similar results were found with children with a mean age of 8.6 in Washington D.C (Wilkins, 2006). Parental control influenced intent to use substances more for males than for females. Vermeersch and colleagues (2008) found opposing results in a group of 14-15 year old Flemish adolescents. They did not find any gender differences between parental control and aggressive risk taking behavior. However, they did find that maternal direct control influenced non-aggressive risk taking behavior more for female adolescents than for male adolescents. Taking into consideration the previous studies, parental control should influence delinquency more for males than