IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsoctx/v5y2015i1p89-108d45725.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effects of Parental Divorce on the Intergenerational Transmission of Crime

Author

Listed:
  • Steve G.A. Van de Weijer

    (Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, VU University, De Boelelaan 1105, Amsterdam 1081 HV, The Netherlands
    Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR), PO Box 71304, Amsterdam 1008 BH, The Netherlands)

  • Terence P. Thornberry

    (Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA)

  • Catrien C.J.H. Bijleveld

    (Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, VU University, De Boelelaan 1105, Amsterdam 1081 HV, The Netherlands
    Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR), PO Box 71304, Amsterdam 1008 BH, The Netherlands)

  • Arjan A.J. Blokland

    (Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR), PO Box 71304, Amsterdam 1008 BH, The Netherlands
    Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology, Leiden University, PO Box 9520, Leiden 2300 RA, The Netherlands)

Abstract

This study first examines the effects of parental divorce and paternal crime on offspring offending. Then, it tests whether parental divorce moderates the intergenerational transmission of crime. Diversity within the offending population is taken into account by examining whether effects are different for fathers who commit crimes at different points of the life-course and by distinguishing between violent and non-violent offending. A sample of 2374 individuals from three consecutive generations from 198 Dutch families was used. The results show that parental divorce increases offspring non-violent offending, but does not increase offspring violence after controlling for parental violence. Moreover, the intergenerational transmission of violence is moderated by parental divorce: empirical evidence for intergenerational transmission of violence is only found for children who did not experience parental divorce during their youth. This moderating effect of parental divorce is even stronger if the father committed violent crimes during the child’s youth. The moderating influence of parental divorce on the intergenerational transmission of non-violent crime is less clear, and the effects are overall stronger for violent crime than for non-violent crime. These results suggest that social learning mechanisms play an important role in the intergenerational transmission of violent crime, although genetic influences cannot be ruled out.

Suggested Citation

  • Steve G.A. Van de Weijer & Terence P. Thornberry & Catrien C.J.H. Bijleveld & Arjan A.J. Blokland, 2015. "The Effects of Parental Divorce on the Intergenerational Transmission of Crime," Societies, MDPI, vol. 5(1), pages 1-20, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:5:y:2015:i:1:p:89-108:d:45725
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/5/1/89/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/5/1/89/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Enrique Javier Burbano Valencia & María Isabel Zafra Sanz, 2017. "Homicidio y precios de la tierra: un análisis espacial en Santiago de Cali," Cuadernos de Economía - Spanish Journal of Economics and Finance, Asociación Cuadernos de Economía, vol. 40(113), pages 147-159, Mayo.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:5:y:2015:i:1:p:89-108:d:45725. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.