PARENT-ADOLESCENT RELATIONSHIP AND JUVENILE DELINQUENCY IN KERALA, INDIA: A QUALITATIVE STUDY

INTRODUCTION

Young people who are at risk of becoming delinquent oen live in diicult circumstances. Children who for various reasons—including parental alcoholism, poverty, breakdown of the family, overcrowding, abusive conditions in the home, the growing HIV/AIDS scourge, or the death of parents during armed conflicts—are orphans or unaccompanied and are without the means of subsistence, housing and other basic necessities are at greatest risk of falling into juvenile delinquency. The number of children in especially diicult circumstances is estimated to have increased from 80 million to 150 million between 1992 and 2000. (UN World Youth Report, 2003) Adolescence is a transitional period of development from childhood to adulthood with evident biological and emotional changes. These changes bring transformation and reorganization in family relationships (Steinberg, 1990). Moreover, adolescents start viewing themselves as adults and, on the contrary, parents may find it difficult to adapt to this perception. There may also be a shi in the unilateral authority enjoyed by the parents towards a mutual authority in which adolescents share decision-making power and increasing amounts of personal jurisdiction (Youniss & Smollar, 1985). Furthermore, interactions between the adolescent and parents can lead to conflict (Steinberg, 1990). Among adolescents, early adolescence (ages 10-15) has been associated with higher levels of conflict with parents (Laursen, Coy, & Collins, 1998), and adolescent- parent relationships may be transformed dramatically during this period. When considering the development of an adolescent, the quality of parent- adolescent relationships is vital. In a study by Chao (2001), the closeness of parent- adolescent relationships explained the beneficial effect of authoritative control. Yet another study by Dekovic, Janssens, and Van As (2003), demonstrated that quality of parent-adolescent relationships explains adolescent antisocial behavior. The quality of relationships could be defined as a constellation of attitudes toward the child that are communicated to the child in the long history of the relationships (Darling & Steinberg, 1993). Dekovic (1999) found that the negative quality of relationships between the adolescents and their parents is related to higher levels of externalizing problems, such as disturbing others, verbal and physical aggression, and acts of violence (Nelson, Rutherford, & Wolford, 1996).

Research has found that the relationships between adolescents with antisocial behavior and their parents are characterized by a lack of intimacy, mutuality, and by more blaming and anger (Dekovic et al., 2003). Furthermore, research has found that conflicting quality of parent-adolescent relationships leads to adolescent maladjustment (Inge, Maja, & Anne, 2006). Adolescent deviant behavior from the social norms is also associated with parents’ relationship with adolescents. In a study conducted by Krohn and colleagues in 1992 (as cited by Alexander & Daniel, 1997), they identified three major factors of family process. They are parental guidance, parental involvement and parental attachment that have eects on delinquent behavior. Juvenile Crime in India In India, crimes are usually classified into crimes under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and crimes under the Special and Local Laws (SLL). There was a substantial increase in crimes committed by adolescents in India from 1997 to 2007 on the national level under IPC. In this period there was an increase from 0.5% to 1.1% in the total crimes committed under IPC. Crimes committed by adolescents under the Indian Penal Code increased by 8.4% from 2006 to 2007, with a reported registration of 22,865 cases in 2007 (Crime in India, 2007). But in 2010 there was a small decrease in the reported cases of crime under the IPC: 22,740 cases (Crime in India, 2010).

Adolescent crimes under the SLL have shown a 12% decrease from 2006 to 2007 (Crime in India, 2007). This was further decreased in 2010 with 2,558 cases (Crime in India, 2010), while in 2007 there were 4,163 reported cases. There are substantial differences in the number of crimes committed by boys and girls in India. In 2007, a total of 34,527 crimes were committed by adolescents alone, and 32,671 were committed by boys and only 1,856 crimes were committed by girls. Thus, girls contributed only 5.4% of the total crimes committed by adolescents in India in 2007 (Crime in India, 2007). Additionally, the ratio of girls to boys arrested for committing IPC crimes in 2010 was 1:20, and the ratio of girls arrested for committing SLL crimes in 2010 was 1:11. Considering this gender disparity in crime in India, I explored only boys with delinquent behavior in this study.