Some family characteristics of Irish juvenile-offenders

Abstract

Two matched groups are compared, 100 industrial trainees and 870 juvenile offenders, who comprised the total population of Ireland's one Juvenile Open Centre during a 4-year period. Variables examined include family size, birth order and whether the family was broken by death, divorce, separation or desertion. The family size of the offenders was almost twice the national average and significantly greater than that of the comparison group. Among the offenders there was a considerable under-representation of last-borns, and first-borns from larger families. However, the over-representation of middle-borns was slight. There were no birth order effects for the trainees. No difference was found between the 2 groups with respect to loss of either parent through death. However, the offenders were 5 times more likely to come from a home broken by divorce, separation or desertion.