ABSTRACT
Parental abuse, which is child abuse committed by parents, is traumatic and noteworthy for prevention (Hahm, Lee, Ozonoff, & Van wert, 2010). The prevention is necessary because the abuse clearly afflicts the child physically and mentally and the infliction can leave persistent scars in the body and mind (MacMartin, 2004). Moreover, the prevention is required because the abuse tends to retard or complicate the child’s development, and the inducement of delinquency is one of the possible complications (Hahm et al., 2010). In this connection, much research has found that parental abuse foments the young victim’s delinquency (Ireland, Smith, & Thornberry, 2002; Sullivan, Farrell, & Kliewer, 2006; Thornberry, Ireland, & Smith, 2001). Occasionally, nevertheless, some research has not observed the fomentation (Silva, Larm, Vitaro, Tremblay, & Hodgins, 2012). These research findings thereby suggest that the presence of mediators enable or impede the fomentation. This means the need to interpret the pathway that parental abuse foments the young victim’s delinquency. A possible but rather controversial pathway is parental control, according to social control theory (Patchin, 2006). In the main, social control theory justifies the prevention of the young person’s delinquency by parental control. The theory also suggests that parental control suffers in the presence of parental abuse, which undermines the bond with and thus control from parents (Lieber, Mack, & Featherstone, 2009). Thus, social control theory claims that parental abuse reduces parental control and increases delinquency consequently. Nevertheless, a counterargument based on coercion or negative reinforcement theory contends that parental control breeds the young person’s delinquency instead (Kuczynsbi & Parkin, 2007). Furthermore, the counterargument
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holds that parental abuse indicates and hence reinforces parental control (Gershoff, 2002). The counterargument thereby insinuates that parental abuse leads to parental control and the young person’s delinquency eventually. Although these arguments expect the eventual fomentation of the child’s delinquency, they differ in the asserted mediational role of parental control, one reducing and another raising parental control by parental abuse. Anyway, there are disagreements or uncertainties about the impact of parental abuse on parental control and about the impact of parental control on the child’s delinquency. The multiple uncertainties necessitate the present study to elucidate all the impacts involving parental abuse, parental control, and the child’s delinquency.
