Sociology

Introduction
Eleanor and Sheldon Glueck was a couple whose major works entailed criminology, mainly on juvenile delinquency and adult crime. In 1950, Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency (UJD) was published and it is one of their most known and most criticized works in sociology. This paper is going to focus on the purpose, methodology, findings and recommendations of the UJD study and my understanding of the work.

Eleanor and Sheldon carried out an over 10 year comparative study whose purpose was to establish the nature of delinquency in children, in terms of initiation and development of crime. The groups were 500 delinquent white boys compared to 500 non-delinquents and both coming from poor urban homes in Boston. The age of subjects ranged from 9 to 17 years with reassessment being carried out in 25 and 31 years of age. The comparison matched the ages, intelligence quotient, residential places, socio-economic background, racial and ethnic backgrounds. The source of information for the study involved interviewing teachers, family members and peers, official delinquency records and also by studying the subjects body types and subjecting them through projective tests. The findings of the study revealed a relationship between age and delinquency. It was stated that one can identify a potential delinquent from as young as six years of age and that criminal careers began early in life. It was further found out that as people age, their rate and seriousness of the criminal activities also decline. Moreover, the probability of delinquency highly depended on family ties and the imparted disciplinary measures. Children, who were exposed to corporal punishment, under supervised and lacked emotional connectivity with their parents were likely to be delinquent as compared to those who were loved, cared for and reasoned about wrong and right with their parents. Another finding was that most boys from the delinquent group took divergent directions in adulthood as compared to those in the non delinquent group.

As much as these findings are widely used in criminology studies, they are highly criticized in sociology especially in the kind of multifactor approach methodology that makes it hard to develop a single discipline theoretical frame work and therefore hard to understand and deduce the accuracy of real situation. The Gluecks faced a lot of criticisms from the work of Sutherland, who applied sociological aspects in studies of criminology (Laub  Sampson, 1991). I agree with Gluecks findings that family upbringing can determine the state of delinquency. According to Greven, over 25 studies have proved that violent physical punishment threatening and over supervision of children at a younger age is the most likely cause of crime (1990).  It results to aggressive children who will grow up being rebellious. It is even worse when a child interprets the motive of the punishment as being unloved as they will likely develop emotional turmoil that will translate to cold heartedness and therefore likely to become criminals. Parents should be more of friends than disciplinarians to their children and should diverse ways of making their children know what is wrong and deserves punishment. On the other hand it is hard to tell if the findings would be consisted if a different group of subjects was used and other factors considered. The multifactor methodology that was used tends to cloud other possible explanations, like the cause of delinquency in children from supporting families.