Describe the changes in the American family and how these changes can affect delinquency

What will be an ideal response?


• The assumed relationship between delinquency and family life is critical today, because the American family is changing.
• Extended families, once common, are now for the most part anachronisms.
o In their place is the nuclear family, described as a "dangerous hothouse of emotions," because of the close contact between parents and children; in these families, problems are unrelieved by contact with other kin living nearby.
• And now the nuclear family is showing signs of breakdown. About half of all marriages may one day end in divorce.
• Much of the responsibility for child rearing is delegated to television and daycare providers. While some families are able to continue functioning as healthy units, producing well-adjusted children, others have crumbled under the stress, severely damaging their children.
• The so-called traditional family—with a male breadwinner and a female who cares for the home—is a thing of the past. This family structure can no longer be considered the norm.
• Changing sex roles have created a family in which women play a much greater role in the economic process; this has created a more egalitarian family structure.
• About three-quarters of all mothers of school-age children are employed, up from 50% in 1970 and 40% in 1960 . The changing economic structure may be reflected in shifting sex roles. Fathers are now spending more time with their children on workdays than they did 20 years ago, and mothers are spending somewhat less time.

Criminal Justice

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According to Lynam (1996), children who show signs of a combination of _____ and ____ from an early age are at high risk of becoming adult psychopaths

a) conduct problems; ADHD b) ADHD; narcissistic personality disorder c) aggression; ADHD d) depression; obsessive-compulsive disorder

Criminal Justice

States created innovative laws to allow the practice of battering

The __________________ rule, a rule that meant a husband could only be criminally prosecuted for injuring his wife if those injuries were severe enough to require stitches, was overturned in 1864 but continued as an informal determining factor used by police as to whether or not to make an arrest in cases of intimate partner violence. Fill in the blank(s) with the appropriate word(s).

Criminal Justice

While in the prison system, developmentally challenged offenders are at greater risk of becoming a victim of

A) theft. B) sexual assault. C) sexual harassment. D) homicide.

Criminal Justice

Discuss the concept of social control and how it has affected the correctional system as a whole.

What will be an ideal response?

Criminal Justice