The Effects of Parental Serious Delinquency, Imprisonment, Divorce and Death on Children's Criminal Careers.

Do criminal careers of children of serious recidivists differ from children of law-abiding citizens? What is the effect of death or the imprisonment of a parent on the criminal careers of children? And what role does divorce play?Earlier research reports a substantial influence of convictions of parents on the criminal behaviour of their offspring. Results of the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (Farrington & West, 1998) for example show a correlation of .43 between the criminal behaviour of fathers and their sons. Previous research however neglects questions about the influence of the behaviour of parents over the life span of their children. Also, questions about the relative importance of criminal behaviour, divorce and imprisonment are yet to be answered. Finally, datasets used are relatively small and of limited time span.Therefore, we investigate the influence of parental criminal behaviour, imprisonment, divorce and death on the criminal careers of their children. We analyse data from the Criminal Career and Life Course Study (CCLS), which is a large longitudinal Dutch dataset with judicial information and population registration data of approximately 3,500 fathers and their 7,500 children. Children from the age of 12 until the age of 40 are followed, which allows us to analyse the influences of parents over a long period of time. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]