By comparing the socio-demographic data, family structures and adult attachment styles between men with a conviction of theft and male college students, and analyzing their effects on theft, we found that there were significant difference in long-term residency, family economic situation, number of children, father’s presence before 5years old, parents’ state of living and parents’ marital status. Moreover, living in urban area, from relatively poor family, not living with father before 5 years old and parents not divorced were risk factors for theft behaviors in men. While father not alive and having no siblings decreased the probability of theft in men.
In terms of social demographic factors, living in urban area increased men’s theft risk, which may be related to the allocation of material resources in the region. In China, supplies in remote areas is only enough for daily use, not be hoarded in large quantities. People there usually engage in self-sufficient agriculture, and the population density is low (Tang et al., 2018). Accordingly, there are fewer goods and opportunities to steal than in urban areas. In addition, men from relatively poor families were more likely to commit theft, consistent with previous research that suggested material shortage and economic constraints were one of the reasons for theft (Harbaugh et al., 2013).
With respect to family structure, the presence of father and parents’ marital status significantly affected theft in men. Many studies have found that fathers played an important role in establishing rules in children’s growth (Langley, 2015; Habib et al., 2010). From the perspective of gender socialization, the relationship between son and father is more important than that between daughter and father (Root & Rubin, 2010). Fathers have more severe punishment and interference protection for boys than girls. Compared with men whose father was present in the process of growth, men whose father was absent before the age of 5 had lower recognition of moral constraints and were therefore more likely to commit theft. In contrast, the results of this study suggested that men in adolescence and early adulthood with a deceased father were less likely to commit theft, possibly because they were more sensitive to the consequences of criminal risks since they needed to assume the family responsibilities previously undertaken by the father. As for parents’ marital status, many studies on adolescent problem behaviors have shown that parental divorce was positively associated with violence and substance abuse (Weaver & Schofield, 2015; Tebeka et al., 2016). On the contrary, results of this study showed that parents not divorced increased the risk for theft, which indicated that the psychological mechanisms for the occurrence and development of violence and theft were different.
Results of this study indicated that having no biological siblings, being the only child, decreased the probability of committing theft, which was consistent with previous studies. The Only-Child Policy of China, enacted in 1979, affected the way Chinese parents raised their children (Wang & Fong, 2009). Resource dilution theory proposed that family resources, such as necessities of life and personal attention and intervention, are finite and divided by the number of children in a family (Blake, 1981). Only children received more attention and responsiveness from parents since childhood and parents of only children made more attempts to correct their only children than parents of multiple children, which help to facilitate children’s development of psychological confidence and mature behavioral patterns (Liu et al., 2010). A cross-sectional study found that only children had better adjustments both psychologically and behaviorally at school in contrast to children with siblings, and presented lower level of psychological distress and delinquent participation, including stealing (Liu et al., 2017). In addition, as the sole heir to family property, being the only child is associated with taking less risk in economic behaviors (Cameron et al., 2013).
Theft group was then further divided into first offender group and recidivist group according to criminal records to analyze risk factors for multiple thefts. There were significant difference in presence of mother/father before 5 years old and father not alive. Furthermore, not living with mother before 5 years old and father not alive increased the possibility of multiple thefts, while preoccupied attachment decreased such possibility.
The absence of mother in the process of growth is a specific trauma for children. Enough emotional support from mother reduces the occurrence of male adolescents’ delinquency, otherwise it contributes to the formation of anti-social personality (VanderPyl, 2018). A longitudinal study revealed that a high quality initial mother-son relationship reduced youth’s re-offending, consistent with our study (Cavanagh & Cauffman, 2017). As mentioned earlier, death of the father was a protective factor for theft in general, but rather a risk factor for multiple thefts. The reason may be related to the economic pressure caused by father’s death. Participants of this study were mainly adolescents and early adults. People of this age usually do not have qualified and stable livelihood ability. Multiple thefts may become the last choice under economic pressure.
Preoccupied attachment is characterized by high anxiety and low avoidance. Orehek et al.’s (2017) study found that anxious attachment was positively associated with higher assessment tendencies, and avoidant attachment was negatively associated with locomotion tendencies. This means that individuals with preoccupied attachment make their decisions based on assessment of means and consequences before initiating actions. In this way preoccupied attachment reduced the likelihood of multiple thefts.
There are some limitations to this study. First, participants were male only, so conclusions can’t be generalized to other population. Second, first offenders and recidivists were divided according to their self-reported criminal records. It is possible that first offenders lie about their criminal records in case of privacy leakage and potential punishment.