Eng215Assignment2

Improving Family Relationships to Reduce Crime Rates

Melva B Parker

William Verrone

ENG 215

07/22/2018

Improving Family Relationships to Reduce Crime Rates

The topic of focus in this paper is improving family relationships to reduce crime rates. My position is that developing and maintaining healthy family relationships plays a vital role in reducing societal crime rates since parental guidance promotes desirable behaviors. Such behaviors include, but are not limited to, respect and safe interactions. Thus, healthy families are pivotal in promoting a safe society.

The first source that backs this position is the article by Ahangaram and Dehpahlavani. The authors argue that instability in families and poor living conditions for children affect societal crime rates (Ahangaram & Dehpahlavani, 2014). One observes that dismantled and unhealthy families have a significant influence on crime in children and adolescents. The living conditions experienced by individuals often have an impact on their tendency towards criminal activities. The usefulness of this article comes from the fact that it teaches my audience about the factors affecting societal crime rates as well as the role of healthy families in the reduction of such crime rates. This article convinces the audience that my position is valid.

Another source that supports my case is the book Criminology: Theories, Patterns, and Typologies by Larry Siegel. The author lists informal social control as one form of collective efficacy, together with institutional and public social controls. Informal social controls entail family, relatives, and peers, with the family being the most crucial wielder of informal social control. The author demonstrates that family has a significant role in keeping at-risk children and youth in check via mechanisms such as ridiculing disrespectful or lazy behavior, withholding privileges, and corporal punishment (Siegel, 2018). These are actions that can only happen if the family unit is healthy, as broken and unhealthy families can hardly rein in on their fellow family members. Families take on a more significant role in the reduction of crime rates in neighborhoods with few social ties among adults and limited collective efficacy.

One source that goes beyond my position to examine other more significant factors is the book Economic Development, Crime and Policing: Global Perspectives. The authors argue that economic factors such as poverty and unemployment, as well as political factors, play a larger role than family health in reducing the rate of crime in society. The authors suggest that addressing factors relating to the economic and political aspects of society and neighborhoods will have a greater impact on the reduction of crime rates as opposed to addressing family health issues (Lemieux, Heyer, & Das, 2015). It should be noted that addressing the latter is much more difficult than addressing economic and political factors since family dynamics are unique to each family. This book demonstrates to my audience the importance of economic and political stability in the attainment of safe societies. The source further highlights the unique role of family health in crime rates, although this factor has been given less credence as compared to the economic and political factors.

Three other sources support my position. In all these sources, the role of the family, particularly the cohesiveness and health of the family unit, has been identified as a crucial factor in the reduction of delinquency and crime among youth, as well as reduction of recidivism rates (Dodge, et al., 2014; Latessa, Listwan, & Koetzle, 2015). The authors observe that family influences not only a child's early development but also his or her trajectory in life (Mackey & Levan, 2013).

References

Ahangaram, M. R., & Dehpahlavani, M. (2014). The Role of Family in Abnormality and Crime in Children with a Case Study. International Journal of Pediatrics, 2(4), 86-94. Retrieved from http://ijp.mums.ac.ir/article_3152_2.html

Dodge, K. A., Bierman, K. L., Coie, J. D., Greenberg, M. T., Lochman, J. E., McMahon, R. J., . . . Group, C. P. (2014). Impact of early intervention on psychopathology, crime, and well-being at age 25. American Journal of Psychiatry, 172(1), 59. Retrieved from https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdf/10.1176/appi.ajp.2014.13060786

Latessa, E. J., Listwan, S. L., & Koetzle, D. (2015). What Works (and Doesn’t) in Reducing Recidivism. New York: Routledge.

Lemieux, F., Heyer, G., & Das, D. K. (2015). Economic Development, Crime, and Policing: Global Perspectives. Boca Raton: CRC Press.

Mackey, D., & Levan, K. (2013). Crime Prevention. Burlington: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Siegel, L. (2018). Criminology: Theories, Patterns, and Typologies (Thirteenth ed.). Boston: Cengage Learning.