Family In Juvenile Delinquency Cases

785 Words4 Pages

Who constitutes the family is also a big factor in Juvenile Delinquency cases. We all know for a fact that family has a very significant role in our society. It is where we are being shaped and molded to become a better person in the future. A normal family has long been regarded as the best insurance against delinquency. In contrast, a family that is broken by divorce, desertion, separation, or death, and that function inadequately as a social unit, is handicapped in carrying on its responsibilities toward the children. The effects of broken and inadequate homes in relation to delinquency can be ascertained most adequately by contrasting such conditions with the influence of family’s life at its best. Children in different family …show more content…

This type of family will greatly affect the behavior of the child because the parent’s (either mother or father) attention will be shifted to their new spouses and sometimes forget their children. This will give a big impact to the behavior of the child because he or she feels neglected or loneliness. But the major composition of a family that surely gives a big impact to the child is a broken family. The family can be broken in a variety of ways; Divorce, annulment, separation, desertion, and death mean that the family is structurally incomplete. When children are placed in institutions or in foster homes, family ties are broken. But there are psychologically as well as legally broken homes. Mavis Hetherington reports that in the year following the break up, children in broken families are more likely to suffer psychological distress, but in the long run they can cope more successfully than children in intact families where parents do not get along. Numerous studies confirm that most children are adversely affected by the divorce of their parents and the struggle of the custodial parent to provide for the well-being of the children in the absence of the other parent. Quite often the important element is not that the home is broken, but the process of disorganization and disintegration that preceded it. In a broad sense, family disorganization means a breakdown of unity, loyalty, consensus, and the normal functioning of the family unit; but, in a more restricted sense, a broken home is one in which the marriage relation has been severed or the children are separated from their parents and this has a great impact on the child’s