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4 Youth Violence & Juv. Just. 3 (2006)

handle is hein.journals/yvja4 and id is 1 raw text is: WHY IS BAD PARENTING CRIMINOGENIC? Implications From Rival Theories James D. Unnever Mississippi State University Francis T. Cullen University of Cincinnati Robert Agnew Emory University This article tests two rival theories: low self-control and differential association and so- cial learning and their competing accounts of why bad parenting matters. The analysis revealed that several dimensions of parenting (including monitoring and caring and pa- rental reinforcement of aggression) affected both low self-control and aggressive atti- tudes. Both low self-control and aggressive attitudes predicted delinquent involvement and were found to partially mediate the effect of parenting measures on delinquency. The influence of self-control on delinquent involvement was found to vary across levels of aggressive attitudes-adolescents who had aggressive attitudes and little self-control were especially likely to engage in criminal behavior. The results indicate that ineffec- tive parenting is likely to produce low self-control and aggressive attitudes through not only direct control (e.g., monitoring and punishment) but also through modeling. Thus, the findings question the claim by Gottfredson and Hirschi and Akers that they have set forth truly general theories of crime. Keywords: parenting; crime; aggression; low self-control; delinquency Although dissenting views can be found (Collins, Maccoby, Steinberg, Hetherington, & Bornstein, 2000; Harris, 1995), social scientists, including criminologists, believe that bad parenting is a cause of youthful misconduct.' In the criminological literature, bad parenting is typically called ineffective, inept, or dysfunctional parenting, and it is regularly portrayed as a risk factor for unhealthy social development and, in turn, for antisocial be- havior (e.g., Loeber & Farrington, 2000; Loeber & Stouthamer-Loeber, 1986). However, if criminologists are agreed that families are incubators of criminality (Farrington, Barnes, & Lambert, 1996), they are not nearly as certain as to why ineffective or bad parenting is re- This research was supported by a grant from the Bureau of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Ser- vices (1999-SB-WX-0056). Points of view in the manuscript are those of the authors and do not necessarily repre- sent the official position or policies of the Bureau of Justice. We would like to thank Alex Piquero for his assis- tance. Address correspondence to James D. Unnever, Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work, Mississippi State University, PO Box C, Mississippi State, MS, 39762, junnever@soc.msstate.edu Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, Vol. 4 No. 1, January 2006 3-33 DOI: 10.1177/1541204005282310 0 2006 Sage Publications 3

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