The Relationship Between Parenting Styles and Adolescent Delinquent Behavior Among 13-17 -year- Old Boys in Kabete Rehabilitation Center in Kabete, Kiambu County

Abstract

Generally, juvenile delinquency has been cited as a key concern facing various sociology researchers and various law enforcement professionals around the globe. Delinquent acts carried out by juveniles have been for long known to impact the society in a myriad ways and still endures to be a major issue in terms of risks. Early depiction of juvenile delinquency tendencies has been mentioned to have risks for the person. In this regard, the key objective of this study was to explore the correlation that exists between parenting styles and juvenile delinquent behavior among 9-17-year-old boys in Kabete Rehabilitation School in Kiambu County. The study was a case study method design where both quantitative and qualitative data was obtained from 83 respondents, 2 focus group discussions and 2 key informants purposively selected for the qualitative data. Self-report questionnaire using standardized test was used to examine parenting styles (Perceived Parental Questionnaire- 20) and another one examining type of crime committed. In the context of a quantitative research approach, the researcher used the Statistical Package for Social Sciences Software (SPSS) for the quantitative data. The descriptive data analysis involved the analysis of frequency distributions, the measure of central tendencies using the mean as well as the measure of dispersion using standard deviation. The hypothesis was tested using a 4-way chi-square to measure the strength of association between the Independent Variable (Parenting styles) and the Dependent Variable (Juvenile Delinquent Behavior). This was replicated at the various levels of the DV as cascaded in all the three objectives. For predictability of the intervention by the various demographic factors, the researcher used a multinomial regression analysis to establish the strength of intervention of the various demographic factors. The qualitative data analysis was conducted as per the various themes that might require an in-depth analysis as identified from the quantitative data analysis. Qualitative data analysis was thematic as a way of clarifying the quantitative data findings. petty theft is 11.1% lower if fathers are responsive while petty theft is 11.4% higher if mothers are responsive. The negative association between fathers being responsive and adolescents engaging in petty theft is corroborated by the Cramer’s V. The positive association between mothers being responsive and adolescents engaging in petty theft is also corroborated by the Cramer’s V. The results on marginal effects reveal that when fathers are responsive, incidences of adolescents engaging in violent crime decrease by 24.4% but increase by 89.1% if mothers are responsive. These findings are corroborated by the Cramer’s V values of -0.1757 and 0.2508 respectively. When fathers are responsive, incidences of adolescents engaging in sexual offences decrease 12.2% while if mothers are responsive, the incidences of adolescents engaging in sexual offences decrease by 12.9%. These results are corroborated by Cramer’s V values of -0.1413 and -0.1654 respectively.