Exploring the Influence of Family Structure on Self-esteem and Attitude Toward Violent Crime Among Youth

Abstract

Youth initiatives and community policing programs have been used largely to curb crime and deter youth from engaging in delinquent behaviors in order to improve public safety. A raging debate however has been circulating around as to whether these approaches can be used with effectiveness in the prevention of violent crime among the youth of Kandara. However, none of these approaches have succeeded in eradicating crime so concerns about their deviant behaviors have raised eyebrow to the security agents and society. Influence from their respective family structures have known to play a bigger role when it came to crime. Therefore the study sought to examine and determine influence of family structure and how it affected self-esteem and attitude of the youth in Kandara. The aim was to ascertain how family structure influenced selfness of the youth, to examine influence of family structure on attitude and to establish the relationship between self-esteem and attitude toward violent crime. Theory of Reasoned Action and Operant Conditioning Theory formed the theoretical framework of the study. Permission for data collection was sought from NACOSTI (National Commission for Science Technology and Innovation) and Ministry of Education from Murang‟a. The survey method was employed by use of questionnaire that entailed both open ended and close ended questions and key informant guide that included 5 people. Data analysis was carried out using the SPSS. The analyzed data was presented in table, through percentage, means, standard deviation and frequencies. Correlation between self-esteem and attitude of the youth toward violent crime was calculated using the Pearson correlation coefficient. The study revealed that the current increase in violent crime among the youth aged 15-24 was largely based on the influence of family structure setup. However, such crimes were found to pull back the economy of the area more so agricultural sector since youth were the work force. The study further established that youth initiatives such as Kazi kwa Vijana and Community policing programs could still be used to create a sustainable friendship between the community members and security agents in identifying crime. It was therefore recommended that guiding and counseling programs should be introduced in the community, learning institutions and churches in order to help deviant youth within Kandara in particular and Murang‟a County at large.