Psychology - Turning To Crime - Upbringing - Farrington

Disrupted Families - Farrington

Method: Longitudinal study, over 40 years of interviews - Self report

Procedure: 411 boys aged 8-9 years old. Boys were all taken from registers of 6 state schools, all mainly white working class from East London. From 397 different families. At age 48, when they were last interviewed 394 still alive, 365 were interviewed (93%)

Results: At age 48, 404 individuals were searched in criminal convictions, 161 had convictions. Those whos criminal careers started age 10-13 were nearly all reconvicted (91%) and commited on average 9 crimes. The number of offenders and offences peaked at age 17.

Conclusion: Offenders tend to be deviant in many aspects of their lives. Most important factors are criminality in family, poverty & poor school performances.

Disrupted Families - Farrington

Background Points: Family & family life can have a big impact on hwo an individual develops. If a family is disrupted in some way that is likely to further impact the child. Therefore, this adds for a factor on why a child will turn to a life of crime. Researchers have demonstrated that factors such as large families, and poverty can influence on individuals turning to crime.

Understanding: There are many factors in child's uprbringing that influence an individual on turning to crime including; poverty, poor parenting, poor schooling performances and large families. Early intervention programmes can help disrupted familes influence on children turning to crime, but this needs to be introduced before teenage years, preferably under 10's.