The Child-Parent Relationship in Violence and Crime

Alan Challoner MA MChS First published in 1998

Part One Possible Origins of Crime

The finger has been pointed at numerous possible causes for the steady deterioration in the behaviour of children over the last forty years or so. These have included: television and video programmes, the Internet and computer games; poverty and unemployment in the family, broken homes, lack of educational and leisure facilities, and drugs, alcohol and diet. Any of these may play a part in individual cases. Two particular factors seem to be having a grave effect on young people in the mid-1990s. Firstly, drug abuse has brought about a situation that has been described as, families living in the no hope nineties. At a police drugs conference in Leicestershire in June 1996, Keith Hellawell, the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire and a national police spokesman on drug abuse said,
Drug abuse is bringing back Dickensian conditions for some of our children. They live in misery. They live, many of them, in filth. They live in a dream, in a world that is perhaps unacceptable to us and unimaginable to us, a world of petty crime, of prostitution, of violence, of fear, of threats, of no hope. As we approach the millennium we find ourselves facing the same problems that we associate with Victorian times. 1

Secondly, it seems to be agreed that persistent violence against young children often results in the development of a violent nature in those children as they get older. What is not always agreed upon is whether knowing the difference between good and bad behaviour is learned or is inherited. There is no doubt that some activities may be good or bad depending on cultural or religious restraints. What does seem to be more certain is that personal responsibility can either be reinforced or eroded. If children are set bad examples, they may well follow them. The do as I say, not do as I do approach no longer works (if it ever did). In this respect Nye has suggested:
The human infant (does not inherit )a sense of right dress, safe driving speeds, moral sex behaviour, private property or any of the other norms of society, whether custom or law. Conformity, not deviation, must be learned. 2

Punishing children for misdemeanours needs to be restrained by principle. One characteristic all forms of punishment have in common is that they often leave the child in a dilemma. He learns from them what not to do, but not what to do. Unless punishment is accompanied by signs that suggest what behaviour is acceptable, the child has difficulty substituting new behaviour for the old, and will be in danger of reverting to the undesired
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Reported in The Times, 20.6.1996. Nye, F. I. Family Relationships and Delinquent Behaviour. Wylie: Chapman Hall; 1958.

behaviour when the transient effects of the punishment have worn off. As Sears et al., have written:
There are many kinds of behaviour the child can learn in response to punishment that emanates from his mother. Those responses will be selected and retained which serve best to reduce the discomfort. What kind of behaviour by him will placate the mother will depend to some extent on her personality characteristics. Sheer flight may work if the mother has lost her temper or is irritably nagging. Passivity may help, or a counterattack may do the trick. If the mothers punishing actions are accompanied by some indication of what behaviour she does desire from the child, then he can follow this clue, and then his reaction to punishment likely will be effective in reducing the pain. 3

Violence also involves families as they try to resolve their problems. The 1992 British Crime Survey showed that the most common type of assault is domestic violence and eight out of ten victims are women. These problems are often the immediate consequences of families that fail. There are also longer-term consequences of family failure. Evidence has been established of a link between a dysfunctional childhood and the subsequent development of a criminal career as an adult. A Report of the Crime and Social Policy Committee concentrated its attention on crimes that showed a lack of respect and concern for other people.4 This involved a study of human relationships and moral standards and what it is that shapes them. It drew attention to the prevailing situation and suggested that:
A society in which more people are excluded from the opportunities available to mainstream citizens is bound to be one in which the most common forms of crime burglary, theft, and other property crime become more prevalent.

And,
Social and economic trends are contributing to increases in crime and undermining efforts to reduce it.

If those are the reasons accepted by the Establishment why do we seem to be incapable of changing our society? Is it a price that it has to pay for a free market economy? Siegal introduced an interesting theory using the trickle-down model of economic activity. 5 This proposes that changes in economic activity in a social community permeate downwards from incentives or disincentives to business. These affect business income, investment, employment and the absolute effects that these have on the poor. The author invites attention to the belief that this series of events permeates further to the level of the parent-child relationship. Thus the attitudes of parents in such difficult situations are transmitted to their children, and it is predicted that this results in problem behaviour. The well-being of the family is then further damaged and the child-rearing quality deteriorates even more. Children are not necessarily themselves aware of the macro-economic problems or even sympathetic to those who are suffering outside of themselves. However the conflicts within the family are constantly made worse by the situation and the children, especially boys, come to have a poorer perception of their parents as a result. A further consequence may be the onset of child abuse, as inter-parent relations deteriorate, and a tendency for
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Sears, R. R., Maccoby, E. E., and Levin, H. Patterns of Child Rearing. New York, USA, Harper & Row, 1957. Crime and Social Policy. London, NACRO; 1995. Siegal, M. Economic deprivation and the quality of parent-child relations: A trickle-down framework. Jnl. Appl. Develop. Psychol. 5(2); [pp., 127-144]; 1984.

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psychological inadequacy to follow. Anna Freud has written that sexual abuse of children within the family, where the chances of harming a childs normal developmental growth are concerned, ranks higher than abandonment, neglect, physical maltreatment or any other form of abuse.6 There have been several cases reported where action has been taken against parents for sexual abuse of their children, and later for the accusations to be withdrawn or diluted. However, despite the obnoxious nature of such events their seriousness demands that a better understanding be gained of the extent of the problem and its frequency. As has been expressed elsewhere these events, as others, will differ according to culture, though there cannot be any excuse for their deliberate perpetration in the exercise of gross and perverted sexual appetite. Anna Freud has written (Idem, 1981) that:
It would be a fatal mistake to underrate either the importance or the frequency of its actual occurrence.

The subject has been explicitly defined by Steele & Alexander who write:
Sexual maltreatment is the involvement of dependent, developmentally immature children in sexual activities that they do not fully comprehend, without consideration of the childs stage of psycho-social sexual development. Such abuse of children occurs in many varieties. It can happen at any age from infancy through adolescence with various family members, relatives, or strangers. It can be a single isolated instance or repeated frequently over many years. It may be either homosexual or heterosexual, with either girls or boys, and involving anything from fondling to full genital intercourse or variations of oral and anal contact. It may be done with some degree of love and gentleness or involve verbal threats or physical violence. All these variables have a bearing on what the abusive experience means to the child and how it is woven into the childs psychic development and affects later behaviour. Sequelae [are most often seen in two ways]: first, the subtle but pervasive affects on basic ego functions such as reality testing, cognitive functioning, defence mechanisms, capacity for pleasure and intimacy, identifications and psychosexual masturbation; second, the sexual behaviours such as celibacy, frigidity, homosexuality, promiscuity, prostitution, and perversions such as paedophilia.7

Cohen adds to this when he writes:

Physical and sexual abuse shares a common root of disregard for a childs vulnerability. It is not the broken bones or genital lacerations which leads to lifetime developmental and emotional disruption. The destructive force is the non-empathic environment in which such acts are permitted to happen. With the exception of such heinous physical traumas as brain damage, venereal disease, or AIDS, each of which carries its own specific permanent impairment, the most potent fomenter of pathology is the noxious atmosphere in which the violent and / or sexual acts occurred. 8

And:
the sexually abusive parent, or the parent who allows abuse, displays extremely ambivalent attachment and inadequate or disturbed mirroring, holding, and facilitating functions. Of particular significance, such a parent is typically intolerant of aggressive expressions, from mere assertiveness in walking to full-blown temper tantrums. The sexually abused child all too often forms hostile identifications, and malignant introjects, which lead to self-attacks, selfmutilation, suicidal attempts, and chronic lack of pleasure. (Idem, pp., 218}

Child abuse can continue on a transgenerational basis unless there is appropriate intervention. Steel & Alexander even go as far as to write that it can be predicted whether a child is likely to be at risk for physical and/or sexual abuse through observations that can

Freud, A. A psychoanalysts view of sexual abuse by parents. In Mrazek, P. B. & Kempe, C. H. [eds.] [pp., 33-34]; Sexually Abused children and their Families. New York, Pergamon, 1981. Steele, B. F., & Alexander, H. Long-term effects of sexual abuse in childhood. In Mrazek, P. B. & Kempe, C. H. [eds.] [pp., 233-234]; Sexually Abused children and their Families. New York, Pergamon, 1981. Cohen, T.B. Long-Term Effects of Sexual Abuse from Childhood to Adulthood seen in Psychoanalysis. In Cohen, T. B.; Etezady, M. H.; & Pacella, B.L.[Eds.] The Vulnerable Child. Vol 1; The Vulnerable Child. [pp., 217]; International Univ. Press; Madison, CT, USA; 1993

be made in the first few hours of its life. (Idem, 1981) This possibility enables any required intervention to be planned before the child has been taken home. Katz et al., have suggested that child abuse teams should formalise decision-making and they ought to include members of class and racial minorities in the decision-making groups. The teams should established systematic links with social agencies and act as advocates. These suggestions followed a demographic study of 185 children aged from one month to 16 years who were suspected of being abused or neglected when seen in a childrens hospital. The findings of their study showed that children with non-physical injuries, (i.e. neglect and failure to thrive) were more likely to have been removed from their homes, particularly if the family was highly stressed. Low-income families were also more likely to lose their children in cases of physical injury. 9 Research methods have been used to assess the rle of support and treatment for marital discord and subsequent child conduct disorders.10 The aim of the study was to assess the place of marital discord in the overall outcome of the training programme in behavioural techniques for parents; and to assess the effects of partner support training. This last centred on marital conflict, communication, and problem-solving. Twenty-four families were involved, half were in a marital discord group and the other half in a no marital discord group. Each family had a child that had been diagnosed as being oppositional or having behavioural problems. Families within the groups were randomly assigned to either child management training alone, or together with partner support training. The most significant outcome in terms of gain occurred with the dual training for parents in the discordant group. However community programmes, individual companies and the national charities do help in many areas. Unfortunately, they are usually a defensive mechanism, brought in when earlier systems have failed. Education for parents, and probably for pre-parents, is essential if they are to establish their children in a society where they will be well adjusted and have good standards. This needs to be done early and effectively, and should not be delayed. It is probably too late if effort in this area awaits requests from parents who are already in difficulties with a delinquent child. Schemes such as Home Start and Newpin are supportive to parents in their wish to achieve the best for their children. Bowlby was one of the first psychologists to draw attention to the question, What conditions in the childs home life might make for a favourable adjustment. and to come up with an answer. 11 He highlighted the type of parenting, typically identified as British that: was intolerant with a childs emotional demands; held the most inappropriate action to be to spoil children by showing too much concern for their outbursts, protests, or complaints; that was insensitive to the harm done by separating the child from its primary caregiver; and that held strict discipline to be the surest route to maturity.

He believed that a warmer and more tolerant environment should be provided, one in which there was an ability amongst parents to accept the expression of negative emotions by their children. He wrote:
Nothing helps a child more than being able to express hostile and jealous feelings candidly, directly, and spontaneously, and there is no parental task more valuable, I believe, than being able to accept with equanimity such expressions of filial piety as, I hate you, mummy, or Daddy youre a beast. By putting up with these outbursts we show our children that we

Katz, M.H. et al. Returning children home: Clinical decision-making in cases of child abuse and neglect. Amer. Jnl. Orthopsych.; 56(2); [pp., 253-262]; 1986. Dadds, M.R.; Schwartz, S.; & Sanders, M.R. Marital discord and treatment outcome in behavioural treatment of child conduct disorders. Jnl. Consltg. & Clin. Psychol.; 55(3); [pp., 396-403]; 1987. Bowlby, J. The making and breaking of affectional bonds. London, Tavistock, 1979.

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are not afraid of hatred and that we are confident it can be controlled; moreover, we provide for the child the tolerant atmosphere in which self-control can grow. (Idem, 1979)

In making these assertions, he had of course found, that in practice, it was an opposite course that parents had taken with their children. Such a course, he maintained, drove the unacceptable feelings underground, and in so doing there was created a guilty and fearful child. The duality of the parental response was that it either punished the child, or disapproved by shaming it, into submission. Bowlby suggested that both of these:
tend to create difficult personalities, the first punishment promoting rebels and, if very severe, delinquents; the second shame guilty and anxiety-ridden neurotics. (Idem, 1979)

The connection then between this emotional updraft and crime, or a potential for crime, is that when a parent is unreasonable by nagging and being over-critical, and when the child experiences unnecessary interference and frustration, he will not only become angry and aggressive but greedy for affection and for the things that represent affection to him (e.g. sweets or toys). In this experiential void lie the seeds of theft. 12 The problem with this approach, valid though it might be, is that evidence of poor parenting tends to be anecdotal, thus the need to ensure strict scientific validity can be difficult. However one aspect that was consistent in many cases, supervised by different scientists, was the history of maternal separation, occurring at a particular time in the childs life. Bowlby described some of the symptoms of children who fell into this category. They had he recalls, a remarkable lack of warmth or feeling for anyone. 13 They tended to be solitary and unresponsive, resistant to punishment, indifferent to kindness. Foster parents typically complained that they could not reach them. They wandered away from home, as if the very concept of home did not matter much to them. They were frequently played truant from school. Many lied brazenly and had no real friendships. In a short interview they often made a good impression, but Bowlby quickly learned that their amiability was hollow and demonstrated no real openness. He believed they formed the hard core of repeat offenders in the criminal population. However beneath the anti-social attitudes Bowlby found a profound and intangible depression, as if, the lost loving environment was gone forever. Behind the mask of indifference, he wrote, is bottomless misery and behind the apparent callousness despair. (Idem, 1944) Despite the distortions that created their fantasies, Bowlby believed that these were stimulated by actual experiences and that they did not have the capacity to deal with them. When they had to face the consequences of their crimes they could not say why they carried them out and seemed not to appreciate the wrong that they had done to others. Bowlby explained this by writing that when a child has been separated from his mother, he not only craves her love, but also the symbols of that love. Consequently they often stole goods that represented to them items that might be associated with gratification. By this process Bowlby believed the affectionless thieves had become locked in a painful isolation that would imprison them forever, their hunger for love and their rage at its absence only showing itself in eruptions of meaningless crime and aggression. In projecting such attitudes onto adult behaviour, Bowlby predicted that such attitudes, incorporated into the personalities of the affectionless children, would eventually be acted out sexually as well; and that many of the affectionless girls would become prostitutes. He supported this supposition with figures drawn from a League of Nations survey showing that a high proportion of prostitutes suffered severe early separations. What of the internal controls that ought to prevent such behaviour? Bowlby suggested that the affectionless thieves lacked super-ego controls because their loving feelings had either never had the opportunity to develop or had been swamped by rage. Some children were removed from their mother at a time when their love for her was only beginning to form (typically in the second half of the first year).
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Karen, Robert. Becoming Attached: Unfolding the mystery of the infant-mother bond and its impact on later life. NY, USA; Warner Books, 1994. Bowlby, J. Forty-four juvenile thieves: Their characters and home-life. London; Bailire, Tindall and Cox, 1946.

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To hate ones mother, Bowlby wrote, is to conjure up a picture of her that is hateful and malicious.
Phantasy, born of rage, distorts the picture of the real mother. A kindly mother who has to put her child in hospital, a frustrating yet well-meaning mother and a really unkind mother can, by this process, alike come to be regarded as malicious and hostile figures. Normally, when such phantasies arise in children, they are soon corrected to some degree by contact with the real mother, who, whatever her shortcomings, is never as bad as the bad mother whom the child pictures to himself when he is in a rage. . . . But where a child does not see his mother for many months there is no opportunity for this correction of phantasy by reality-testing to operate. Extravagant phantasies of the kind described then become so entrenched that, when the child returns to the real situation, he can see it in no terms but those of his phantasies. (Bowlby, J. Idem; 1946)

People who grow up hating their parents invariably hate themselves as well. If we see them as malicious beings, how can we ourselves, who are so identified with them, be any better? Whats more, to have such hateful feelings toward someone we feel we should love makes us feel all the more despicable. (Karen, 1994) There are particular supporting strategies to be adopted for children if we want to reduce the level of crime in the future.14 It has been pointed out that there is evidence to show from recent research that the development of deviant behaviour can be reduced if attention is paid to early maternal/child attachment and security and their sequelae. Luria has argued that the development of the ability of the human being to control and order his own behaviour is in the strictest sense dependent on the development of the speech function. He shows how verbal instructions and comments to a child can alter the natural strength of stimuli and make the physically weaker component predominant. He then argues that it is when ones own speech assumes the rle of re-shaping ones significant perception that one has become, in Pavlovs terms, the highest self-regulating system.15 On this view, then, someone in whom the speech function is not fulfilling this rle (either through immaturity or brain damage or for some other reason) must be expected to be at the mercy of the able to limit himself to the nature of a problem and prevent the intrusion of other notions not strictly relevant to the task in hand. His behaviour will be marked by precisely that lack of rigour that has been observed in the subjects who make errors of an arbitrary kind. (Luria, Idem, 1961) Theoretical reasons connecting behaviour to diet have had considerable exposure. These include indictments of: hypoglycaemia, absolute low blood sugar, food allergies and vitamin deficiencies.16 Another researcher has identified only low blood sugar and possibly malnutrition to support the hypothesis that dietary considerations affect behaviour. 17 The family is the most important influence on children as they grow up, and on their predilection to commit crime. In its 1983 report, The Prevention of Crime Amongst Young People, the Parliamentary All-Party Penal Affairs Group concluded:
We are in no doubt of the crucial rle which parental behaviour plays in increasing or reducing the likelihood of a child becoming delinquent .

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Booth, C.L.; Spieker, S.J.; Barnard, K.E.; & Morisset, C.E. Infants at Risk: The rle of preventive intervention in deflecting a maladaptive development trajectory. In McCord, J.; & Tremblay, R.E. [Eds.] Preventing Antisocial Behaviour: Interventions from birth through adolescence. Guilford Press, NY, USA. [Pp., 21-42] 1992. Luria, A. R. The rle of speech in the regulation of normal and abnormal behaviour. London: Pergamon. 1961. Doraz, W.E. Diet and Delinquency: The grounding of four leading theories in human physiology and sociology. In Essman, W. B. [Ed.] Nutrients and Brain Function. [Pp., 219-230] S. Karger, AG, Basel, Switzerland; 1987. Schoenthaler, S. J. Diet and Delinquency: Empirical testing of seven theories. International Jnl. of Biosocial Research; 7(2) [pp., 108-131] 1985.

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Utting et al., asserted that preventing delinquency and crime by supporting families is good, sensible, social policy.18 When the home cannot provide an adequate environment for children to play, they are often allowed to go outside the area from which parents can exercise control. This sometimes leads them into circumstances where the boundaries between play, excitement, risk-taking, and law-breaking can become blurred. For older children, some schools now involve pupils in running junior crime prevention panels. Some authorities will contradict the assertion that the deterioration in childhood behaviour has resulted in more crime amongst young people. They may point to Home Office figures which show that between 1985 and 1991 the number of known young offenders found guilty or cautioned for indictable offences has fallen from 176,000 to 105,000, a drop of 42%. When demographic factors have been considered the fall is reduced to one of 30%. 19 The Home Office does not necessarily assume that there has been such a fall in the amount of crime committed by young people. The reason for this is that it does not know the ages of those who have been involved in crime but were not caught or did not admit to all the offences committed. [Only two offences in every 100 reach the courts. Idem] So is part of the picture that young people are getting cleverer at not getting caught? Or is it because the police forces do not have sufficient manpower? Or could it be that parents are not doing their job properly? Inevitably, I believe, we are being thrust back onto individual responsibility and morality as the only sound ground for retrenchment. However there is no place here for political dogma or self-righteousness. In an era of free choice we must look to flexibility and a community approach, but one that supports the vulnerable sections of the population. There are some who suggest that when young people are convicted of indictable offences it is their parents who should suffer the penalty. This at present seems to be a minority view. The most frequently cited proposal (other than that of current sentencing policy) is that the young person should be placed in a training situation rather than be punished. There is a dilemma about whether there should be a demand for higher individual standards of behaviour or a more just society. Should there be condemnation of the criminal or a better understanding of his behaviour? In order to assess what might be most appropriate it is necessary to look at the reasons why young people commit crimes. If children are wanted, loved, properly nurtured and guided through their developmental years, should we expect them to become, as a result of that care, responsible, law abiding citizens? You may consider that it does. But if so how can we deal with the situation whereby the child is affected by matters outside of the immediate control of the family? For instance, bullying, contact with drug abuse or a poor community environment. In other words whilst we may want the best for our children how can we help to prevent the society in which they live from corrupting them? How can we prevent peer group pressure from exercising a greater control over our children than we can wield as parents? Can we, or do we try, as someone has put it to, sacrifice our children on the altar of our own moral principles? Alternatively can we change the character of our communities? If so how long will it take, how can it be achieved and who will do it? Halsey asked a similar question how far (do) people have it in their power to determine for themselves change in the society in which they live. Halsey suggested that all ultimate values are individual and that, society is in no sense superior to the sum of the people who make it up. 20 Some areas of the country have attempted to produce schemes to reverse the trends and to assist in keeping young people away from crime. These include the NACRO New Careers Training centres and the Kensington and Chelsea Harvey Centre. These assist young potential recidivists to resist their offending behaviour and redirects them towards the development of new interests and opportunities. Guidance is also available about

18

Utting, D.; Bright, J.; & Henricson, C. Crime and the Family: Improving Child-rearing and Preventing Delinquency. Family Policy Studies Centre; 1993. Longford, The Earl of. Young Offenders. London, Chapmans; 1993 Halsey, A. H. Change in British Society. Oxford, OUP; 3rd. Ed. 1986.

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other schemes including pan-European ones, in the handbook of the European Offender Employment Group. Hagan and McCarthy have found that children of unemployed parents are much more likely to be involved with the frequency of serious theft behaviour than those of children whose parents are in employment. 21 Wells provides both the ideas for motivation and for opportunity. 22
All that is missing from a purely economic account of the determinants of property crime is the loosening of the individuals behaviour (personal conscience). Of course unemployment in no way justifies crime and it would clearly be wrong to imply that all unemployed individuals resort to crime. But the growing sense of illegitimacy of a social order that countenances mass unemployment as well as increasing income inequality might provide a solvent to the normal moral constraints.

Crime is undoubtedly tied up very closely to human psychology and that begins in childhood and involves parents as well as their children. Some things we learned have been taken very seriously and have resulted in better psychological health for our children open hospital visiting as opposed to one visit per day at 6pm, as was the case in one hospital I knew. However, when it comes to the individual behaviour of parents, we have much less control. Are we destined to have a level of crime that we cannot change because we have no real way of reaching those on whose shoulders rest the responsibilities for the development of some children? Finally, are we going against attachment principles by putting our children into nurseries at a very early age; long before their attachment has become secure? How much separation can a six-month-old baby endure before it becomes psychologically harmed?

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Hagan, J.; & McCarthy, B. Streetlife and Delinquency, British Journal of Sociology, 43, No. 4; 1992. Wells, J. Crime and Unemployment, Economic Report, Vol. 9; Employment Policy Institute; 1995.

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