The Impact of Different Family Configurations on Delinquency

How do outcomes of boys who had experienced family disruption before age 12 years compare with those from intact families? This paper is based on a sample of 21,314 Swiss male recruits who completed a cross-sectional survey at age 20 years. As in the Cambridge Study, disrupted families predicted offending. However, intact high-conflict families predicted the same prevalence of offending as disrupted families. Boys not living with their mother, especially when they had lived in institutions before age 12 years, were most likely to become persistent offenders. Therefore, the dichotomy of disrupted versus intact family hides many important sub-groups, including those living with their mother (low-risk) and those who had experienced institutional rearing (high-risk).