Juvenile delinquency and foster care - Research Paper Example

The dearth of studies of the effects of foster care, particularly its long-term effects, has been pointed out in the literature by several authors (Fanshel & Shinn, 2003; Geiser, 2001; Madison & Shapiro, 2001; Prosser, 2003; Wolkind, 2003). A recent review of research into fostering concluded that there is a lack of even the fundamental knowledge “about the intrinsic value of foster care itself” (Prosser, 2003, p. 31), and that the need to assess its long-term effects that was stressed by earlier reviewers (Dinnage & Kellmer Pringle, 2002) continues.

If it is accepted that long-term effects can be defined as those effects of fostering that manifest themselves in the personal and social functioning of former foster children as adults, then only four studies appear to have been ever published on this subject in the professional literature. Further, only one of these was concerned with an inferential analysis of specific parameters of fostering (Meier, 2001). The parameters were age of child at placement and the number of different foster homes experienced by the child, and were found to be unrelated to the “social effectiveness” and “sense of well being” of the subjects as adults.

The other studies indicated that, among children in state care, those who are fostered have the least convictions as adults (Ferguson, 2001); that fostering of boys who present a high risk of delinquency does not prevent their deviance as adults (McCord, McCord & Thurber, 2004); and that adults who were fostered in childhood have a somewhat higher incidence of marital breakdown.