Statement of Problem

Crime has been defined in various ways. It seems that the most complete definition that has been presented according to the views of experts in different fields is that the crime is an action which is contrary to the rules, regulations and laws of the society and leads to the legal proceeding and prosecution. So, those who commit such acts are called criminals. (Farjad, 1992: 169).

Although the adolescents and youth's crime always has been a part of communities problem, but it never has been too cute as a social problem but the rise of adolescents and youth's crime after the nineteenth century especially the violent and atrocity crimes has been considered as one of the great social problems that has raised concerns of world public opinions. In this respect, the recent reports of United Nations indicate that the rate of crime is growing throughout the world and the crime rate increases more than the population growth. Hence, crime especially among the children and adolescents is one of the most complicated and important problems that threat the communities and draw attention of many sociologists, psychologists, criminologists and educational professionals. The consequences of crime among the children, in addition to the overall losses to these kind of  individuals and communities, is the national capital loss and destruction of forces and talents of young individuals who are the most important asset of any nation. Also, the enormous cost of reparation has to be spent each year including capture, tracking, maintenance and rehabilitation of children and adolescents. The worst thing is that unfortunately the treatment of crime is not always enough and the evidence show that the most criminal children and adolescents continue this way in the adulthood. With regards to the above cases and the belief that the prevention is much easier and more effective than treatment, the opportunities should be seized, the emergence areas of such problems should be eliminated in the society and the factor or factors of crime should be investigated in order to prevent the crime.  

The recent studies show that the social harms are growing in the communities, so the factor or factors of crime should be identified to solve the problem completely.

Family is one of the most important grounds of crime and crime victimization development. The experts, welfare workers, lawyers and sociologists argue that the factor or factors should be identified that provide the kind of conditions under which the individuals abuse, tolerate or accept the crime in order to secure the society, reduce the social harms and finally propose the procedures to reform it.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the cause or causes and conditions of crime victimization of children where the most important conditions include education, job, income level, age, disputes, divorce, death, drug addiction and mental disorders of parents and so forth.

Hypothesis

1- There is a meaningful relationship between the rate of children's control by their families and tendency of children to criminal behaviors.

2- There is a meaningful relationship between the children belonging to their families and tendency of children to criminal behaviors.

3- There is a meaningful relationship between the family cohesion and tendency of children to criminal behaviors.

4- There is a meaningful relationship between the family structure and tendency of children to criminal behaviors.

Theories of Victimology

The theories of criminology focused on criminal acts have been considerably ignored for many years. Then, a group of researchers found that the victim is not a neutral subject in crime but the victim is a individual whose behavior has effect on his/her fate. Stephens Chofer suggests that the victim may assist a criminal act with the intention of becoming a victim. Therefore, he argues that the focus on victim is necessary to establish a crime.

Role of victim in stimulating a criminal act: the victim may stimulate and encourage a criminal act. The concept of stimulation and encourage of victim became well known by Marvin Wolfgang in 1958. He found that the crime victim is often involved in his/her death and 25% of all homicides may occur as a result of stimulating and encouraging of crime victims. There are two types of stimulation and encourage of victim:

A: active stimulation and encourage: when it is realized that the victim acts as a stimulant and use the controversial words to threat the criminal or attack fist.

For example, some experts suggest that the female rape or sexual assault victims stimulate the crime by wearing the provocative dresses, although these kinds of findings are negated.  But the courts have appealed the acquittal verdict in some cases of rape victims where the victim's act is interpreted as companionship or intimacy.

B: Inactive stimulation and encourage: when the victim, with regards to his/her character, has no intention to encourage the aggressive. For example as a woman got promoted, she will become a target of primary violence by her jealous husband or friend.

2- Lifestyle Theory

Some criminologists believe that the individuals may be the victim of crime because their lifestyle increases the risk of victimization as a result of committing a crime. Such conditions increase the risk of victimization: gangs' membership, carrying of weapons, selling drugs and so one. It is possible that the individuals are being shot or killed by a group of insiders in these cases or the college students who go to party many nights a week or use the drugs possibly are more exposed to the violent crimes than the individuals who avoid living like that. This theory suggests that an individual can reduce the possibility of victimization by engaging in less risky behaviors. The basis of this theory is that the crime is not accidental and it depends on lifestyle of a crime victim.

3- Routine Activity Theory

This theory seems to be a reliable way to understand the crime and characteristics of victimization and predict the risk of victimization (6).

Routine Activity Theory's Graph

The appropriate targets: lack of reliable protection

1- bleak houses, owners of house, 2-cop 3- the cars which are not locked, 4- supervisor neighbors, 5- unprotected shops, 4- security officers, 5- cop

Motivated offenders:

1- Young men, 2- jobless individuals, 3- excessive users of alcohol and drugs, 4- unaccompanied youth, 5- gang's members

There are many problems in understanding the cause or causes of victimization which include the lack of precise statistical data about the crime victims. When there is no statistical data about the crime victims in Iran, it decreases the possibility of analyzing the causes of victimization. Therefore, analysis of cause or causes of victimization is practically impossible. Because it is necessary to introduce the laws and regulations to the citizens and raise their awareness and education to prevent the victimization, i.e. inform the prevention procedures of victimization to the people in order to reduce the rate of crime victims.

Social Control theory

Trois Hirsch is one of the most important theorists in this field. He suggests that dependency of an individual to society has four main elements:

The first element is Interest or relationship with the specific, important and surrounding people. this means that those who are interested in their surrounding people are more responsible towards them and they are more concerned with their satisfaction. On the contrary, those who are not that way have no concerns about others so they are more likely to destruct their social relationships and take the risky behaviors.

The second element is commitment. It means something the people owe to society.

Hirsch states that most people attempt to get a better life and reserve the material and non-material assets. Whatever the people invest more in things such as education, career and etc, they are more likely to conform to the social norms to protect their achievements. Conversely, those who have nothing to lose as a result of a criminal act are more likely to commit the criminal acts.

The third element is participation in the healthy activities. Hirsch argue that the time and energy of individuals is limited, so the individuals who spend their time and energy for their career, family life, sport and so forth have little time left to participate in the criminal acts.

The fourth element is belief which means the loyalty of individuals to their values or ethics. If an individual or a group believe that an action is abnormal and deviant, it is unlikely that they commit such an action. On the contrary, those who are not adhering to social beliefs are more likely to violate the social values and norms.

According to Hirsch's theory, a group whose members have strong mutual dependencies will control their members better than a group who are not strongly dependent on each other. (Robertson, 1993, free interpretation of P: 175).

Family Anomie Theory

A group of researchers refer to the effect of family on the children in filed of risky behaviors which include the family structure, unhappy family, disorganized family, family dimension, economic situation, living place of family and investigate the social harms in this perspective. William Goode is among those who have performed researches in this field. Goode uses the concept of anomie and its application in the family and argue that any disruption in the family are involved in the formation of abnormal characters in the family. He believes that when one or more members of the family fail to do their duties, the family will be at risk of disruption. This kind of disruption is caused by a number of factors which include:

A- Absence of father in the home because of death, divorce or busyness where the mother has to do all duties and play the father role.

B- Absence of mother in the home where the motherly role in the family is faced with problem.

C- Weak and even conflicting relationships among the family members which cause poor interaction among the members where there is a weak sense of empathy and solidarity among them.

Goode argue that the family meet the physical and emotional needs of members, and helps them to know themselves. Also, the family is the place of education. Development and flourishing of children. In the point of Good's view, the factors leading to disturbances and anomic conditions in the family structure are as follows:

1- Lack of Legitimacy, i.e. there is no father in the home and the mother has to do all duties. Failure of family's members, mother or father to do his/her duties is one of the causes of lack of legitimacy.

2- Termination, separation, divorce cessation or the condition under which one parent refuses to perform his/her duties

3- Hollow family where the members live with each other but they have no mutual relationship so that they lack of emotional support for each other.

4- Failure to perform the main duties because of maim or illness. In this case, the illness is the origin of disruption in the family.

As before said Goode used the integration procedure and explained the women's drug addiction and their sexual deviance by combining the micro and macro factors. He pays attention to the significant effect of family on emergence or non-emergence of deviant behaviors and suggests that any kind of disruption in the family lead to drug addiction and subsequent sexual deviances in children (Mohseni Tabrizi, 2004, pp: 70-71).

Preferential Associations

Sutherland proposed two concepts. The first one is the concept of white collar criminals who are the influential individuals and though they commit crime, they are not prosecuted due to their political, social or economical position and even if they are prosecuted, they will not be convicted, hence crimes of this kind of individuals are among the black statistics of crime. The second concept is preferential associations that is the complete form of Tard Theory. According to this theory, the individuals are members of various groups where they have special culture, so they have an orientation towards the social norms in the manner that if it is positive, the members are less likely to commit crime.

Merton's Strain Theory

Merton presented his theory around two issues of end and means i.e. he said that every culture determine a series of ends for its followers, so it is considered success to achieve this kind of ends. For example, having money is the sign of success in U.S.A and the culture determines the way to achieve the end. Where the means which is referred by that culture is not enough to achieve the end, the individuals will be under pressure because the culture considers them lazy and unable to achieve those ends. Hence, the individuals replace the end or means in some cases. Therefore, we observe five different reactions:

1- Conformity: the individual accepts both of end and culture.

2- Innovation: the individual accepts the end but deny the culture.

3- Traditional worship: the end is nor important for the individual but he/she accepts the means.

4- Solitude: the individual denies both of end and means (addicts, homeless).

5- Revolt: the individual accepts the end and means but not in the current conditions. This kind of individuals cause problems for the society and they are usually called antisocial (coup conductors)

The cases of 2, 4 and 5 lead to crime.

Factor or Factors of Crime in Children and Adolescents

Since the crime among the children and adolescents is a great social harm, there are various effective factors in crime. Otto Klineberg said that any factor alone is not enough to explain the complex behavior such as youth crime (Otto Kleinberg, 1989), thus, the effective factors in crime of youth are so varied that if it is impossible, it is very hard to enumerate all of them. However, this problem does not hinder us to examine the various factors, identify the effective ones in crime and analyze the quantitative and qualitative effect of each factor.

The scientific studies on the effective factors in the emergence of crime show that the crime is the result of personal and social characteristics of the criminal or the conditions under which she/he lives. However, it is hard to identify the effect of various factors in the emergence of crime, because of the fact that all internal and external factors in the emergence of crime are like the interconnected chains so that each one is the starting point of the other one. These factors are so varies that it is not easy to say that which one of them is more effective in the emergence of crime. On the other hand, the effectiveness of each factor is not clear. That is why the respective experts believe that there is no absolute factor that always causes an individual to commit crime.   

In order to facilitate the study, the effective factors in the mergence of crime are classified into five categories and will be discussed as follows:

A- Family Factors in the Emergence of Crime

Every major study on crime has shown the close relationship between the family instability, children's living conditions and crime. The research evidence indicated the fact the unhealthy and dismantled family is hidden behind many crimes in children and adolescents (Navabinejad, 1996, 19). The result of study showed that 47 individuals in the statistical population pointed out that their parents and their negligence, recklessness and lack of control are among the key factors in the emergence of their crime. In other words, they believed that their parents had involved in their crime (Ghorban Hosseini, 1992: 31).

Undoubtedly, the personality of each individual is initially formed in the family. So the family has significant role in determining the fate and future life of the individual and his/her mental health depends to a great extent on the family. Because, an individual born under the influence of thoughts, beliefs and behaviors of the family members. Hence, the family is the first factor that affects the child's behavior.

In general, thoughts of parents and or other members of the family more or less have effect on the children.

What is the most interesting thing is that the family deficiencies and shortcomings have negative effect on the members of family which expose the children to the corruption under the certain circumstances and gradually push them into the crime.

Mothers have the most influential role in correcting or corrupting the children compared to other members of family. Because, the child's education begins in the fetal period and before birth. In this regard, Prophet Mohammad PBUH said that prosperity and adversity of everyone starts in the mother's womb (Razaghi, 1992: 22).

On the other hand, the mother is firstly responsible for meeting the needs of child. So feeding of child by the mother or her good or bad behavior has significant effect on the child. Form the beginning, the child has a strong ability to mimic the movements and behaviors of those who are around him/her and gradually his/her character in formed under this condition. The effect of family on crime is not limited to the childhood and the training deficiencies and shortcomings are effective in the adolescence and adult life. With regards to the important role of family in crime and various stages of development in the children, it is referred to some family issues that can affect the children and adolescents and lead them to commit crime.

1- Father-Mother Conflict

 Conflict between the father and mother is among the factors that lead to crime in children and adolescents which have effect on other members of the family or even relatives. Sometimes, the problems of family cause one of the parents leave the home.

It is evident that this kind of family problems disrupts the sense of security and mental health of children and they have direct and undesirable effect on them.

If the children do not experience the sense of tranquility, serenity and intimacy which are the basic needs of anyone, they will search to find it outside the home. So they are likely to fall into the trap of fraudulent and corrupt people who lead them to commit crime. Anyway, conflict and disputes between parents has negative mental effect on the members of family. Sometimes, the children lose their interest in education or job because of impaired mental relaxation, then they even run away from home and finally they are inclined to commit crime.

a study on 800 criminals showed that the 65% of their mothers were divorced or are separating at present. Another study showed that 88% of the criminals have divorced parents or the parents who live apart due to their conflict (Sotoudeh, 2001: 41). Therefore, it can be said that the conflict between the parents cause deviance in children and adolescents.

2- Discrimination between Children

discrimination in the family where the parents pay more attention to a child than others or less attention to a child than others cause hatred and suspicion of the children. In this respect, Witreig Groberg Wolf argue that rivalry and competition within the family members has destructive effect on children's spirit that may make the child compare himself/herself with his/her siblings who loved more by his/her parents and feel the sense of inferiority (Ahadi and Mohseni, 1993: 187).

Discrimination at home is incompatible with the sensitive and self-esteems of children and hurt irreparably their spirit. so, it cause a series of psychological and emotional turmoil and frustration in the children which lead them to respond negatively to this stimulus such as theft, substance abuse (drug addiction) and running away from home (Esfandiari, 2002: 65). Hence, discrimination against the children may cause the children to tend to commit crime.

3- Lack of Affection in the Family

the need for affection is one of the primary basic needs of every human especially children. As the children need to eat food to grow physically, also they need affection and love to become emotionally and socially mature. The children need their parent's affection more than good food, warm clothes, toys and amusement.

Lack of affection is one of the strong factors that lead the children and adolescents to commit crime. The adolescents who are not loved enough by their parents are ready to accept a variety of behavioral disorders and ethical deviances. If the children receive affection in their families, they get the mental repose which hinder them to tend to many ethical lapses. An adolescent girl who suffers from affection deficit disorder may be interested in whoever express his love and begin a friendship with him who may make her corrupt in this way. actually, the type of love is different depending on the age of children. However, the children should be loved by their parents and their natural need to love and affection to be satisfied by this way (Shambiani, 1993: 196).

Many commentators of criminal issues argue that the affection deficit and emotional weakness is the origin of crime and deviance. In this regard, a study show that 915 of criminals have suffered from the emotional problems (Arabian, 2003: 23). Hence, it must be said that the lack of affection underlie the emergence of educational failures in adulthood.

4- Absence of Father in the Home

Since the father has important role in the development of child's personality, hence, his presence in the home has a great effect on his mood that its consequences usually are characterized during the puberty and adolescence periods. The family need to strength, decisiveness, tact and management of father as well as feelings and emotions of mother. So, if the father is absent in the home for any reason or he simply he is just present physically, then the disintegrated and inconsistent family lead the members to tend to commit crime.

5- Crime in a Family Member

The criminality of parents or one of the family members and their ethical deviances may be effective in tendency of children to commit crime. For example, the families which are corrupt because of alcoholism or drug addiction not only can not nurture the healthy children but also their behavioral characteristics can be a role model for bringing their children into various distortions. The children learn the social attitudes from their families and if one parent is criminal, then their children will be more exposed to the risk of corruption than others. The mother who is not adherent of ethical issues and who has intimacy problems cause their children to come along with "acts incompatible with chastity" and given the appropriate conditions, the same acts are more easily done and repeated by the children.

The results of research show that many addicted individuals have addicted father, mother, grandfather or etc in their families (Madani, 2002: 187).

6- Lack of Understanding of Children

The static families and the families which do not change over the time and expect that their children to live the old ways or the families which move back cause the tendency of children to commit crime. These kinds of families do not meet the legitimate needs of children and adolescents, so they can not properly understand and support their children's aspirations. As a result, this leads to psychological maladjustment of children with community (Ghaderi, 1997:32).

Statistical Population, Sampling Method, Sample Size

In this study, the statistical population includes parents who have a girl or boy child or children and live in the city of Qom. We have attempted to investigate most families with different social classes, parental education, residential area and job. The sample size was determined using Cochrane approach to collect the necessary data. The approximate size of sample based on the following formula is illustrated below:

d: desirable probable accuracy= 6%

t: safety factor 95% =96/1

p: the desired trait

By substituting these numbers in the estimation formula n, the sample size of 266 people is obtained.

4- Research Findings

4-1: Descriptive Findings

- Gender:

most respondents (66.4%) were male and (33.6%) were female.

- Age:

Most respondents (40.6%) were between ages 41 to 50 and 9.8% were above the age of 50, 37.2% between ages 31 to 40 and the 12.4% were between ages of 20 to 30.

 Education

In this study, most respondents (43.6 %) were undergraduates. (31.6 %) and (7.5 %) had high school degree or diploma and associate degree respectively. (5.3 %) were graduate and higher, (4.9 %) illiterate and (4.5 %) were in secondary school.
Employment
Most respondents (68.4 %) were employed, (13.4 %) housekeeper, (10.3 %) retired and (5.5 %) were student.
Monthly Expenses
18.1% of respondents had a monthly expenses under 500 to 750 thousand toman, (56.4 %) 750 thousand to 1 million toman , (6.2 %) 1 million to 1 million and 500 thousand toman, (5.7 %) 1 million and 500 thousand to 2 million toman and (13.7 %) higher than 2 millions toman.

Communication

The family communication of about 78% of respondents were high and very high, 14.3% average and about 7.5% were low and very low.

Table 1: Distribution of Respondents in Terms of Communication with Family

Consultation

As indicated in the following table, family consultation of 6.5% of respondents were high and very high, 23.7% average and 5.8% were low and very low.

Table 2: Distribution of Respondents in Terms of Consultation with Family

Disputes

The family disputes of 66.2% of respondent were low and very low, 19.2% average and 14.7% were high and very high.

Table 3: Distribution of Respondents in Terms of Family Disputes

Intimacy

Intimacy in the family of most respondents (76.3%) were high and very high, 14.3% average and 9.4% were low and very low.

Table 4: Distribution of Respondents in Terms of Intimacy in the Family

Attention to the Children's Education and Job

More than half of the respondents (71.1%) were agreed or strongly agreed with this saying that "the family always pay attention to their children's education and job". however, 18.8% intermediate and 10.2% were disagreed and strongly disagreed.

Table 5: Distribution of Respondents in Terms of Family Attention to the Children's Education and Job

Importance of Children's Friends for the Family

Most respondents (88.3%) were agreed or strongly agreed, 6.8% intermediate and about 5% were disagreed or strongly disagreed with this statement that "it is important for my family that who is the friend of their child.

Table 6: Distribution of Respondents in Terms of Importance of Children's Friends for the Family

Clothing Style's of Child

Most respondents (74.5%) were agreed or strongly agreed with this saying that "the family is involved in the clothing style of children but 18.4% were intermediate and 7.1% were disagreed or strongly disagreed.

Table 7: Distribution of Respondents in Terms of Clothing Style's of Child

Accountability of Child

83.4% of respondents were agreed or strongly agreed with this statement that "if they come home at night later than a certain time, they be hold accountable to their families" and 12.1% were disagreed or strongly disagreed.

Table 8: Distribution of Respondents in Terms of Accountability of Child

Drug Use and Distribution

Drug use and distribution among the children of 95.4% of respondents was low or very low.

Table 9: Distribution of Respondents in Terms of Drug use (Drug addiction) and Distribution

Holding or Going to the Night Party

The response of 80.45 of respondents to this question was low or very low, 5.4% average and 14.2% was high or very high.

Table 10: Distribution of Respondents in Terms of Holding or Going to the Night Party

Listening to the Vulgar Music

Listening to vulgar music among the most of respondents (78.6%) was low or very low, 12% average and 9.4% was high and very high.

Table 11: Distribution of Respondents in Terms of Listening to the Vulgar Music

4-2: Hypotheses Testing

The Relationship between the Children's Control by the Families and the Tendency of Children towards Criminal Behaviors

Pearson Correlation Test was used to examine the relationship between the two variables of children's control by the families and the tendency of children towards criminal behaviors. The result of test shows that the significant level (0.000) is less than 0.05. therefore, there is meaningful inverse relationship between the children's control by the families and the tendency of children towards criminal behaviors. On the other hand, as the children's control by the family increases, the tendency of children towards criminal behaviors decreases and vice versa.

Table 12: The Relationship between the Children's Control by the Families and Tendency of Children towards Criminal Behaviors

The Relationship Between the children's Belonging to Family with Tendency of Children towards Criminal Behaviors

Pearson Correlation Test was used to examine the relationship between two variables of children's belonging to family and tendency of children towards criminal behaviors. The result of test shows that the significant level is (0.003). so the children's belonging to family is meaningful inversely related to the tendency of children towards criminal behaviors, i.e. as the children's belonging to family increases, tendency of children to criminal behaviors decreases and vice versa.

Table 13: The Relationship Between the children's Belonging to Family with Tendency of Children towards Criminal Behaviors

The Relationship between the Family Cohesion and the Tendency of Children towards Criminal Behaviors

Pearson Correlation Test was used to examine the relationship between the two variables of family cohesion and the tendency of children towards criminal behaviors. The result of test shows that the significant level (0.000) is less than

0.05. Therefore, there is meaningful inverse relationship between the family cohesion and the tendency of children towards criminal behaviors, i.e. where the family cohesion is high, the tendency of children towards criminal behaviors is low and vice versa.

Table 14: The Relationship between the Family Cohesion and the Tendency of Children towards Criminal Behaviors

The Relationship between the Family Structure and the Tendency of Children towards Criminal Behaviors

ANOVA Test was used to compare the family cohesion and the tendency of children towards criminal behaviors. The result of test shows that there is meaningful different between the two variables.  On the other hand, the comparison of means indicate that the children of separated parents tend more to criminal behaviors. The significant level is equal to (0.000) which is less than 0.05. Hence, there is meaningful difference between the family structure and the tendency of children towards criminal behaviors.

Table 15: Using ANOVA Test to Compare the Family Structure With the Tendency of Children towards Criminal Behaviors

Conclusions and Suggestions

Most respondents (66.4%) were male and (33.6%) were female.

Most respondents (40.6%) were between ages 41 to 50 and 9.8% were above the age of 50.

Most respondents (43.6 %) were undergraduates and (31.6 %) had high school degree or diploma.

Most respondents (68.4 %) were employed, (13.4 %) housekeeper, (10.3%) retired and (5.5%) were school or college student.

Most respondents (64.5%) were middle class, (20.8%) high class, (10%) low class and (4.6%) were very low classes.

The monthly expenses of  18.1% of respondents were under 500 to 750 thousand toman, (56.4 %) 750 thousand to 1 million toman , (6.2 %) 1 million to 1 million and 500 thousand toman, (5.7 %) 1 million and 500 thousand to 2 million toman and (13.7 %) were higher than 2 millions toman.

the wife and husband lived together in 95/4% of cases.

Results of Hypothesis

-The Relationship between the Children's Control by the Families and the Tendency of Children towards Criminal Behaviors

Pearson Correlation Test was used to examine the relationship between the two variables of children's control by the families and the tendency of children towards criminal behaviors. The result of test shows that the significant level (0.000) is less than 0.05. Therefore, there is meaningful inverse relationship between the children's control by the families and the tendency of children towards criminal behaviors. On the other hand, as the children's control by the family increases, the tendency of children towards criminal behaviors decreases and vice versa.

- The Relationship Between the children's belonging to Family with Tendency of Children towards Criminal Behaviors

Pearson Correlation Test was used to examine the relationship between two variables of children's belonging to family and tendency of children towards criminal behaviors. The result of test shows that the significant level is (0.003). so the children's belonging to family is meaningful inversely related to the tendency of children towards criminal behaviors, i.e. as the children's belonging to family increases, tendency of children to criminal behaviors decreases and vice versa.

- The Relationship between the Family Cohesion and the Tendency of Children towards Criminal Behaviors

Pearson Correlation Test was used to examine the relationship between the two variables of family cohesion and the tendency of children towards criminal behaviors. The result of test shows that the significant level (0.000) is less than

0.05. Therefore, there is meaningful inverse relationship between the family cohesion and the tendency of children towards criminal behaviors, i.e. where the family cohesion is high, the tendency of children towards criminal behaviors is low and vice versa.

- The Relationship between the Family Structure and the Tendency of Children towards Criminal Behaviors

ANOVA Test was used to compare the family cohesion and the tendency of children towards criminal behaviors. The result of test shows that there is meaningful different between the two variables.  On the other hand, the comparison of means indicate that the children of separated parents tend more to criminal behaviors. The significant level is equal to (0.000) which is less than 0.05. Hence, there is meaningful difference between the family structure and the tendency of children towards criminal behaviors.