This meta-analysis of 161 published and unpublished manuscripts was conducted to determine whether the association between parenting and delinquency exists and what the magnitude of this linkage is. The strongest links were found for parental monitoring, psychological control, and negative aspects of support such as rejection and hostility, accounting for up to 11% of the variance in delinquency. Several effect sizes were moderated by parent and child gender, child age, informant on parenting, and delinquency type, indicating that some parenting behaviors are more important for particular contexts or subsamples. Although both dimensions of warmth and support seem to be important, surprisingly very few studies focused on parenting styles. Furthermore, fewer than 20% of the studies focused on parenting behavior of fathers, despite the fact that the effect of poor support by fathers was larger than poor maternal support, particularly for sons. Implications for theory and parenting are discussed.

Procedural justice literature suggests that when criminal justice authorities treat people with fairness and respect, people will be more likely to comply with authority’s decisions and rules. Up until now, prior research has largely neglected the correctional context and often used cross-sectional designs. The aims of this study were to examine (a) the longitudinal relationship between prisoners’ procedural justice perceptions and their misconduct, and (b) the mediating role of anger in this relationship. Using two waves of survey data (T1 and T2) and disciplinary reports from a sample of 806 Dutch prisoners, structural equation models were employed to investigate associations. The results show that prisoners who felt treated in a procedurally just manner in the correctional facility at T1 were less likely to report engaging in misconduct at T2. They were also less likely to have received a disciplinary report at T2. Anger fully mediated the effect of procedural justice on prisoners’ misconduct.

Adaptation to imprisonment involves feelings of safety, autonomy, well-being, stress or misbehaviour among detained offenders. According to importation theory, characteristics such as previous experiences of imprisonment or psychiatric problems affect the adaptation of offenders to imprisonment; deprivation theory, in contrast, focuses on factors such as social interactions with peers or staff and fairness in procedures or in daily life encounters. In this study, adaptation to imprisonment and the relationship with importation and deprivation factors were investigated among 207 juvenile offenders incarcerated in Dutch juvenile correctional institutions. A cross -sectional multi-method design was used, including a survey, screening instruments, records and qualitative interviews. Controlling for importation characteristics, strong associations of adaptation to imprisonment were found with interactions with peers and staff, justice, daily activities and the number of juveniles in a group. The study provides valuable insight into the factors related to adaptation to imprisonment, which can help to improve safety in prison and, subsequently, could be useful in increasing the motivation of juveniles to participate in treatment programmes. The implications for theory and practice are discussed.

We examined how parenting is directly and indirectly associated with adolescent delinquency. We derived four possible mechanisms from major criminological theories and examined their relative contribution to explaining the relationship between parenting and delinquency: self-control theory (that is, self-control), differential association theory (that is, delinquent attitudes and peer delinquency), and routine activity theory (that is, time spent in criminogenic settings). In addition, we examined how changes in different aspects of parenting during adolescence were directly and indirectly related to changes in delinquency. Results of multilevel structural equation modeling on two waves of panel data on 603 adolescents indicated that parenting was indirectly related to delinquency through self-control, delinquent attitudes, peer delinquency, and time spent in criminogenic settings. However, only when examined together these variables, derived from major criminological theories, almost fully mediate the effects of parenting. Furthermore, changes in parenting during adolescence were indirectly related to changes in delinquency through changes in delinquent attitudes and in peer delinquency.