Family or Caregiver Instability, Parental Attachment, and the Relationship to Juvenile Sex Offending

Abstract

A violent or unstable home life-characterized by caregivers physically or sexually abusing children, physical violence in the home, homelessness, and other factors-and disrupted parental attachment are examined in this secondary data analysis for their possible relationship to juvenile sex offending. Parent or caregiver instability is measured by a demographic questionnaire administered to participants. Parental attachment is measured by the Inventory of Peer and Personal Attachment. The population included 502 adjudicated juvenile male sexual and nonsexual offenders in a Midwest state who responded to questionnaires in order to examine juvenile offending antecedents. The highest correlated parent or caregiver instability variables to juvenile sex offending status were multiple relocations or homelessness, children placed out of the home, slapping or punching in the home, and sexual abuse victimization. The quality of parental attachment had little impact on the respondents' offense status.

The impact of disrupted caregiving for juvenile sexual offenders

“…However, this study did not address the directionality of the relationship between offence status and caregiver quality scores. It has been suggested that youth with weak attachments are more likely to engage in violent or sexually delinquent acts (Felizzi, 2015b). Inadequate caregiving may also mean that these youths are poorly supervised and monitored, and thus are at increased risk for delinquency and sexual offending (Zankman & Bonomo, 2004).…”

“…However, recent reviews have identified some areas of commonality among youth who commit sex crimes. Family factors have emerged as an important area in which JSOs may be set apart from youth who do not engage in sexually aggressive acts (Felizzi, 2015a). This line of research may be especially worthwhile as family contexts are proving to be essential when researchers and treatment professionals focus on issues of primary prevention (Ryan, Leversee, & Lane, 2011), recidivism (Zankman & Bonomo, 2004), and treatment trajectories for sexually aggressive youth (Borduin, Schaeffer, & Heiblum, 2009;Henggeler et al, 2009;Yoder, 2014).…”

“…JSOs frequently report poor or problematic relationships with their caregivers (Yoder, Dillard, & Stehlik, 2018) and have significantly greater deficits in relationship quality when compared to non-sexual offenders (Yoder, Leibowitz, & Peterson, 2016). Thus, caregiver disruption must be considered a potentially precipitating factor for sexual offending, insofar as it may exacerbate the poor attachment relationships between a youth and their parents (Felizzi, 2015b).…”

“…Non-biological guardians represent another under-investigated form of caregiver disruption for JSOs. Some research has shown that JSOs are more likely than average to live with a non-biological caregiver (Duane et al, 2003;Felizzi, 2015a;Funari, 2005). Yet little is known about how that relationship impacts their sexual offending behaviour.…”

Parental and Peer Attachment Characteristics: Differentiating Between Youth Sexual and Non-Sexual Offenders and Associations With Sexual Offense Profiles

“…The first was a dissertation that revealed indiscriminate parental attachments between youth sexual and non-sexual offenders (Wong, 2002). The second used the composite parent scales to show differences between youth sexual and non-sexual offenders on father and mother overall attachment (Felizzi, 2015). However, research to date has yet to explore the differentiating ability of nuanced characteristics of attachment including alienation, trust, and communication.…”