Family structure versus family relationships for predicting to substance use/abuse and illegal behavior

This is a report on a court-adjudicated, inner-city, low SES, sample of African-American adolescent males (N = 326), to determine the degree to which their family structure (e.g., single parent vs. two-parent families) vs. the nature of the family relationships, predict to the sons' involvement in substance use/abuse and in illegal behavior. Some of the family relationship measures, but none of the family structure measures, were found to predict to substance use/abuse, illegal behavior and drug trafficking. Of 33 family relationships measures analyzed, three predicted at the .01 level of significance, to the degree of recent substance use/abuse, and two predicted to the recent frequency of drug trafficking. If the subject considered his mother to have an alcohol problem, this was found to be the strongest single predictor to the degree of the son's substance use/abuse, for this sample.