| While parental monitoring of children's behaviors (direct controls) probably diminishes over time from pre-adolescence to young adulthood, in a relative sense college students living at home are probably controlled socially to a greater extent by their parents than their residential college student counterparts. Students who have moved out of the home to attend college have a greater amount of freedom, independence, and relative lack of controls -- "freeing" them from parental restrains to commit deviance. Similarly, we argue that young adults (college students) living with a boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse have greater family attachments or constraints, resulting in less self-reported crime and deviance than among college students living alone or with a roommate. We find support for these hypotheses among a sample of 800 Midwestern college students. While the effect of parental attachments may be diminished by young adulthood, "living arrangements" while attending college appears relevant to the likelihood of self-reported crime. The implications of this research and its possible relevance to campus crime are discuseed. |
Updated 05/20/2006