The Family as Context for Delinquency Prevention: Demographic Trends and Political Realities

Abstract

The nuclear family, European or Asian, socialist or bourgeois, modern or traditional, is the center of social life in all cultures. Societies rely on the family to accomplish the essential tasks of producing and socializing children. The continued prosperity—indeed, the survival—of any society depends on how adequately families discharge this responsibility. These are truisms; they would readily gain the assent of the common man or woman. Yet, this emphasis on the family as the center of social life, and correspondingly as the locus of formation of personal character and thus the appropriate context within which to address problems of antisocial behavior, conflicts with some expert thinking in the social sciences and allied professions (Wilson & Herrnstein, 1985, p. 213; J. Q. Wilson, 1985a). It is therefore noteworthy that this book’s theme of examining the role of family-centered methods of intervention aimed at reducing delinquent juvenile behavior represents a departure from this thinking.