‘I blame the parents’: analysing support for the deficient household social capital transmission thesis

This article explores belief in parental deficiency as a causal factor of youth anti-social behaviour and crime. Empirical interrogation of household interview data from a UK city considers whether there is widespread support for blaming parents. Somewhat surprisingly, lower income households and those containing young people, are found to be more likely to consider parental responsibility a problem. Most notably, a tendency to blame the parents strongly associates with a perception that people in the area do not treat each other with respect.