Young People Who are Strongly Attached to their Schools and Parents are Less Likely to Commit Crime

Document Type:Thesis

Subject Area:Criminology

Document 1

The media has also been blamed. Among these factors, the one that has received huge attention is parents and schooling. Parents contribute to criminal behaviors in their youth through poor attachment and the failure to punish the youths when they do something wrong. On the other hand, school contributes to crime due to lack of supportive mechanisms that foster attachment between the school and students. Based on the elements of the attachment theory it is clear that young people who are strongly attached to their schools and parents are less likely to commit crime. For instance, robbery declined by 70 percent, while other forms of assault declined by 49 percent. Weapon-related offenses also declined by a huge margin of 73 percent (Butts, 2016). Even though there has been a decline in crimes among the youth, it is still a major problem in the society.

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Even though the morals and principles of the family have been eroded over the years, the role of the society in dictating the ideal portrait of a family has remained intact. The family serves as a natural support system that protects the children from being negatively influenced by external forces within the society. The society places a high value on school and most parents look forward to their children succeeding in school. Therefore, when a person fails more often, he or she becomes less attached to school which increases the chances of developing delinquent behaviors (Sandahl, 2016). Other than performance, ineffective communication from teachers results in poor teacher-learner relationship, which results in students perceiving the school environment to be lacking social support.

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This lack of social support also increases the risk of offending. Effective communication between teachers and learners makes students to perceive the school environment as meaningful. The id determines the needs and desires. On its side, the super-ego counteracts id through fostering morality and righteousness feelings. The ego plays the role of evaluating the reality of a position between the extremes of id and the super-ego. Therefore, when there is a proper balance between the three components, a person will lead a normal life. However, when one of them becomes dominant at the expense of others, the person ends up having abnormal traits (Pearce, 2003). When parents are more attached to their children, they become aware of the daily activities of those children besides providing the social support needed for effective coping with stressful situations (Choon, Hasbullah, Ahmad, & Ling, 2013).

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Parental involvement in the daily activities of children ensures that proper interventions are given to misbehaviors of children (Ingram, Patchin, Huebner, McCluskey & Bynum, 2007). This results in a balance of the three personality elements suggested by the psychodynamic theory. Lack of attachment to school, which manifests in the form of poor performance and poor relations with educators, results a person feeling disappointed with schooling. This results in a youth developing deviant behaviors as the key outlet for frustration with schooling (Dornbusch, Erickson, Laird, & Wong, 2001). Total youth arrests for violent crime still falling nationwide. Data Bits: Research and Evaluation. Choon, L. J. , Hasbullah, M. , Laird, J. , & Wong, C. A. The relation of family and school attachment to adolescent deviance in diverse groups and communities.

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