UNRAVELING FAMILIES AND DELINQUENCY: A REANALYSIS OF THE GLUECKS' DATA*

Abstract

One of the most influential studies in the history of criminological research is Sheldon and Eleanor Gluecks' Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency (UJD) (1950). The research design of the UJD study was strong, but the conceptual and statistical analyses performed by the Gluecks were ofen lacking in both methodological and theoretical rigor. As a result, the Gluecks' study has been criticized from both a methodological and ideological perspective. This research reanalyzes the original Glueck data, with a specijic focus on variables relating to family characteristics of 500 oficially defined delinquents and 500 nondelinquents. Using multivariate analyses we find that mother's supervision, parental styles of discipline. and parental attachment are the most important predictors of serious and persistent delinquency. On the other hand, background factors (e.g., parental criminality and drunkenness, broken homes, crowding) have little or no direct effect on delinquency, but instead operate through the family process variables. By reanalyzing the original UJD data, this study contributes to the current literature on family lve and delinquency and provides an updated assessment of the Gluecks' contributions to criminologv.