Adolescents Who Assault Their Parents: A Different Family Profile of Young Offenders?

Abstract

Some authors have proposed that the mechanisms underlying adolescent-to-parent abuse seem to be different from other forms of juvenile delinquency. Given that this aggression is exerted within the family setting, our study was aimed to explore if there was a differential family profile for those adolescents who commit a parent abuse offense compared to those who commit other types of offenses. Judicial files of 1,046 young offenders from the Juvenile Justice Service of Jaén (Spain) were examined. The final sample (654 young offenders) was divided into 2 groups: those who had committed offenses against a parent (parent abuse group) and those who had committed other types of offenses (other offenses group). Results showed that families with parent abuse have differential characteristics, especially regarding the family size, type of household, parenting styles, and the patterns of interactions between the family members.