1 Do Break-Ups Cause Break-Ins?1

Growing concerns over the increasing juvenile crime rate have sparked extensive research into the socioeconomic and psychological factors that lead young adults to engage in illegal behavior. Over the past forty years, the number of juvenile court cases handled has more than doubled (George T. Kurian, 1994). The rise in destructive acts amongst youths is evident in school dropout rates, teenage pregnancies, drug abuse, and quite apparently in this substantial increase in teenage crimes committed. Over the past several years, attempts have been made to link this growing propensity towards crime with the breakdown of the American family. According to a 1988 survey by the National Center for Health Statistics, children in single-parent families, many of which are products of divorce, are two to three times as likely to have emotional or behavioral problems than children in two-parent families. This paper is an attempt to solidify the correlation between divorce and juvenile crime. I. Theor