Book Review: Patchin, J. W. (2006). The Family Context of Childhood Delinquency. New York: LFB. 182 pp

Date01 December 2008
DOI10.1177/0734016808321817
Published date01 December 2008
AuthorMichael E. Foster
Subject MatterArticles
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Criminal Justice Review
Patchin, J. W. (2006). The Family Context of Childhood
Delinquency
. New York: LFB. 182 pp.
DOI: 10.1177/0734016808321817
This short volume examines the experiences of participants in an evaluation of an
antidelinquency program in a mid-Western city. The study focuses on at-risk youth, many
of whom had been arrested for serious offenses. The intervention group received intensive
supervision, participated in recreational activities and life-skills training, and was involved
in other services, such as mentoring, tutoring, drug counseling, and family therapy, where
needed. The focus of the empirical analysis is on the interaction between family character-
istics, intervention status, and delinquency.
The strong suit of the book is an introductory overview of the conceptual issues sur-
rounding the family as the context of childhood delinquency. The book reviews a broad
range of conceptual issues and approaches and organizes the material effectively.
The empirical analyses focus on the link between offending and family characteristics:
the youth’s relationship with the primary caregiver, whether the youth lived with both par-
ents, the receipt of family-focused programming as part of the intervention, and improve-
ment in family relations during the study period. In general, support for the hypothesized
relationships was mixed at best. The book relies on an appropriate mix of techniques,
including logistic regression and multilevel modeling.
The book suffers from a variety of limitations that are endemic to research of this type.
For example, the comparison group is a mix of individuals in the target community.
Although the main effects of the intervention are not the focus of the analysis, more infor-
mation on differences between the comparison and intervention groups would be informa-
tive if not essential. The study also has low follow-up rates, especially for the control group.
In addition, juvenile justice administrators assigned more...

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