Criminal Thinking Styles and Criminal Social Identity Among Juvenile Delinquents: Moderating Role of Parenting Styles

Parenting is considered imperative in the development of juvenile\u27s cognitions, and beliefs. The parent-child relationship might significantly influence juvenile’s thought patterns and social communications. Different parenting styles perhaps indicate criminal involvement of juveniles, resultantly turns them into delinquent. The present study was done to discover whether parental authority styles moderate the path that links criminal thinking styles to criminal social identity amongst juvenile delinquents. Participants of the study were 211 juvenile delinquents who responded on Juvenile Criminal Thinking Styles’ Inventory (Sana & Rafiq, 2019), Measure of Criminal Social Identity (Boduszek, et al., 2012), Parental Authority Questionnaire (Babree, 1997) and approached through purposive sampling technique. Association among variables was measured by using the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient whereas moderating effects of parental authority styles in linking criminal thinking styles to criminal social identity were assessed through hierarchical regression. The results show a positive relationship of criminal thinking styles with criminal social identity, authoritarian and permissive parenting styles while a negative relationship with authoritative parenting style. Moreover, it is evident that strict (authoritarian) and liberal (permissive) parenting moderates the interrelationship of criminal thinking styles and criminal social identity of juvenile delinquents as compared to reliable and trustworthy (authoritative) parenting. Results suggest working to develop intervention as well as prevention programs for juveniles that need appropriate attention and affection from parents, which resultantly persuade distorted thought patterns and criminal peer associations