ABSTRACT
Results from juvenile delinquency and offending research have demonstrated that parental criminality is a risk factor for intergenerational offending. This chapter examines the intergenerational transmission of incarceration by analyzing the oldest generations of Dutch families contained in the Five Generation Study of Risk in the Netherlands. Murray and colleagues re-examined longitudinal studies conducted in the UK, US, Sweden and the Netherlands to explore whether the effects of parental incarceration on offspring offending differed across jurisdictions with varying social and penal climates. Developmental systems theory offers a framework to contextualize parental incarceration and children's development. Children's behaviour and developmental changes occur as a result of changes in individual-context relations among the multiple systems and structures in which the young person is developing. The incarceration of a parent may result in removing certain developmental risks for a child, such as poor role modelling, substance abuse and family violence.
