Social structure
...ng home infants suffered hospitalism, a pattern of deep depression accompanied by weeping and sadness, long periods of immobility or mechanical rocking, and unresponsiveness to other humans. These institutionalized infants suffered a high rate of mortality, and the survivors displayed severely retarded developments. They could not speak, walk, dress themselves or use a spoon (Spitz, 1945). More recent research links neglect to a constellation of problem behaviors such as aggression, avoidance, fewer pro-social behaviors, and lower self-esteem (Kaufman & Cicchetti, 1989). The human infant lacks the skill and knowledge necessary to survive and transmit culture. All societies rely on the family to provide the child with cultural fundamentals. Thus family background and values play important role in the making of a criminal or antisocial behavior of a person. We are going to discuss some important family variables, in this essay, for criminal behavior of a person. Family Violence Violence among the family members is very common. Sociologists estimate that wives are occasionally beaten in percent of families, regularly battered in 3.4 percent (Straus and Gelles, 1988). Abuse occurs in every conceivable form among family members, from wives beating their husbands to children beating their parents or grandparents. Children who grow up in a violent family not only witness aggression; they often bear the burnt of it. Tragically, child abuse is not a rare occurrence. It is estimated that each year in the United Sates over a million children are physically abused (Gelles & Cornell, 1990) and over 150,000 are sexually abused (National center on Child abuse and Neglect, 1988). National Survey data indicate that over 60 percent of rape victims are under eighteen (Kilpatrick et al., 1992). Children are abused by parents as well as by family members, but parents and caretakers more often inflict severe abuse, particularly of young children. Boys suffer more physical abuse than do girls, and mothers are more likely than fathers to physically abuse their children (Straus et al., 1980). In contrast girls suffer more sexual abuse than do boys, and fathers are more likely than mothers to sexually abuse their children (Russell, 1984). Family abuse and violence surely act as a destructive force in our society. They produce consequences that sometimes reverberate throughout the victim’s lives and even in future families. Victims of incest suffer alienation and other emotional difficulties into adulthood. Abused and neglected children are more likely to become violent, criminal adults (Alexander, Moore & Alexander, 1991). In general, abused children show a variety of difficulties, including aggressiveness, problems relating to peers, lack of empathy, depression, and trouble in school. Children need not be physically victimized to suffer from it. Simply being around marital discord and violence can produce emotional, social, and academic problems. Those who see their parents hitting each other are more likely to inflict aggression on their own spouses in the future. Furthermore, distressed mothers who punish their children in anger can become emotionally unavailable to their children. Parental Strain Worried parents can pass their strain to their children. Working mothers tend to show rejecting and punitive parenting behavior when they dislike their job or when they lack social support fo...