Parental Criminality, Family Violence and Intergenerational Transmission of Crime Within a Birth Cohort Marianne Junger & Jack Greene & Ruth Schipper & Floreyne Hesper & Veronique Estourgie Published online: 11 January 2013 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 Abstract Previous studies documented that crime is heavily concentrated in families. However, many studies relied on relatively small samples, often males and information on criminal involvement was self-reported. The present study investigates: (1) the prevalence of arrests in three generations; (2) the concentration of offenders and arrests within families; (3) the relationships between arrests among the relatives; (4) the relationship between arrests and family violence. A complete cohort of the families in which a child was born in a Dutch city was selected, and the arrests of all known family members (siblings, parents and grandparents) were investigated. Results showed that 7.2 % of the mothers and 18 % of the fathers had been arrested. The likelihood of parental arrests was related to the likelihood of grandparental arrests. Eur J Crim Policy Res (2013) 19:117–133 DOI 10.1007/s10610-012-9193-z M. Junger Institute for Governance Studies, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands J. Greene (*) School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Northeastern University, 402 Churchill Hall, Boston, MA 02115-5000, USA e-mail: j.greene@neu.edu R. Schipper HSK groep, dokter stolteweg 54, 8025 AX Zwolle, The Netherlands e-mail: r.schipper@hsk.nl F. Hesper Nijmegen, The Netherlands e-mail: floreyne@gmail.com V. Estourgie Police Force Gelderland-Zuid, Nijmegen, The Netherlands e-mail: Veronique.Estourgie@gelderland-zuid.politie.nl M. Junger (*) Industrial Engineering and Business Information Systems, School of Management and Governance, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands e-mail: M.Junger@UTwente.nl