Family Socialization Essay

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There is much research that fully supports the family as a primary agent of socialization and its effect on crime deterrence. Socialization occurs throughout our life, but the most important socialization occurs during childhood. The socialization that we receive during our childhood has a lasting effect on our ability to interact with others in society. Family is considered the primary agent of socialization since our dependency on our parents begins at a young age, and never fully stops. Our parents, or those who are in the parental role are responsible for teaching us to function and care for ourselves. They also teach us about relationships with others, and provide us with our first system of values, norms, and beliefs. For this reason, my independent variables will be the use of prison nurseries, maternal incarceration, and maternal influence on children and the impact it had on their school performance, their deterrence, attitudes towards crime, and if any developmental or psychological problems arose due to maternal incarceration and the absence of a mother during crucial developmental years. Using Hirschi’s (1969) social bonding theory as a general framework, this paper aims to examine the potential impact of …show more content…

Hirschi argues that a person with strong and stable attachments to one’s family, friends or community institutions are less likely to violate societal norms. His next element, commitment; refers to the investment an individual has to social activities and institutions. Hirschi argues that there was an association between the level of commitment and propensity for deviance. Involvement is the third element and it refers to large amounts of structured time spent in socially approved activities reduce the time available for deviance. Finally, the last element of social bonding theory relates to the individual’s level of belief in shared social values and norms (Hirschi

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