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Essay on Father Absence & Delinquency among African American
Delinquent behavior by African-American male adolescents is of special worry to society as a result of their overrepresentation in juvenile detention centers and adult prisons, morbidity and mortality statistics, and reports of academic underachievement. In 1997, African-American adolescents represented about 15% of the total U.S. adolescent population, however they represented 41% of juvenile delinquency cases involving imprisonment and 52% of juvenile delinquency cases judicially waived to criminal court. In 1998, 47% of homicide victims in the 15.- to 19-year-old age group were African-American males.
The high rate of violence-related mortality is consistent with self-reports of violent behavior by African-American male students. In 1999, 44% of African-American male high school students reporte d that they had been in a physical fight in the past 12 months and 23% reported carrying a weapon at least once in the past 30 days. High rates of delinquent behavior on school property also have been reported by African-American male high school students, which has adversely affected their relationships with peers and teachers, led to a disproportionately high frequency of disciplinary actions, and contributed to persistent academic underachievement. For these reasons, understanding and preventing delinquent behavior among African-American male adolescents must be a priority.
Research and theory suggest that parenting is an important factor of criminal behavior among adolescents in general, and among young African-American males especially. Poor parental supervision and monitoring, strict and or inconsistent disciplinary practices, infrequent parent-adolescent communication, and poor parent-adolescent relations have been shown to be related with higher levels of delinquency and aggression among adolescents generally.
Nevertheless, relatively few studies have investigated the effects of these aspects of parenting specifically among African-American male adolescents. The effects of parental control and supervision to intimate parent-adolescent communication and relations and found parent control and supervision to be more strongly linked with delinquent behavior in a sample of African-American male 12- to 19-year-olds.....
