The Influence of Parenting at the Age of Criminal Responsibility

The paper analyzes the influence of the family environment on the behavior of children and adolescents, in terms of the development of criminal behavior, answering the research question: Are family dysfunctions a favorable factor in the development of criminal behavior in minors? As a result of the first research approach, the analysis of the specialized literature, as well as the studies and research carried out by internationally qualified bodies, in the field of child protection, led to the selection of the main determining factors of criminal behavior, analyzed in the work: the absence of the parent(s) from the child's life, as a result of divorce/death; the absence of the parent/ parents from the child's life, as a result of the parents going to work abroad; neglect; emotional abuse; physical abuse; sexual abuse; dropping out of school, before graduating from secondary school. The second research approach was represented by the analysis of the incidence of these disruptive factors in the child's living environment, in the situation of criminally sanctioned minors, found in the records of the probation service, in the year 2023. From the analysis of the research results, we can formulate the conclusion that family dysfunctions are a factor favoring the development of criminal behavior, based on their incidence and plurality in the minors who were evaluated by probation service. Also, dropping out of school, before graduating from secondary school, is a risk factor for committing crimes and this, in turn, is favored by the coexistence of some of the analyzed family dysfunctions.


Keywords: criminal behavior, adolescents, risk factor, family dysfunctions, dropping out of school