FAMILY INSTABILITY AND JUVENILE DELINQUENCY
ABSTRACT: The family as a universal social institution exists in all human society. It forms the basis without which no society can survive. It is from here the individual picks up a “self” through the process of socialization. Various factors have been associated with delinquency, but the most important is the quality of relationship between parents and children. Some observers of social life have argued that the family no longer functions as a useful social unit. The method employed for the study is the survey method and the purposive/judgmental sampling technique of the non-probability sampling method. Based on the data collected, we found that domestic violence does determine delinquency in children, that large family does not engender delinquency, that children who associate with delinquents usually became delinquents, and that there was a relationship between parents’ criminal record and deviance in children.