Male and Female Broken Home Rates by Types of Delinquency

HE broken home generally has been assumed to be associated with juvenile delinquency. Since i9I2, when Breckinridge and Abbott published The Delinquent Child and the Home,' virtually all studies of delinquents or adult criminals have found a high percentage of cases from broken homes.2 Case histories, as well as statistical studies, point to the broken home as an important factor in personality maladjustment.' Psychiatrists have considered abnormal home environments, including the broken home, to be important conditioning factors in delinquent behavior.4 Not only have high percentages of broken homes been found in a delinquent population, but higher percentages of broken homes have been generally shown to exist among the female cases than among the male cases.6 Various attempts have been made to explain this disparity. Such attempts have resulted in devious and complex discussions which have not clarified the question. Inferences have been largely guesses on the basis of assumed differences between the sexes. T. Earl Sullenger, for example, suggests that the reason the broken home rate of girls is higher than that of boys is obvious and is due to the fact that "the girl's life is more closely related to the