One in three prisoners belongs to a family with criminal convictions, with many having had a sibling, parent or spouse previously serving a jail term, according to the first local study of its kind.

In a trend which sharply differs from abroad, criminologist Janice Formosa Pace identified the partners-in-crime phenomenon among parents and children, with many Maltese criminal parents tending to work closely with their children in committing crime together.

Children tend to follow in their parents’ footsteps, even in the type of crimes they choose to carry out

For her PhD thesis with the University of Huddersfield, titled ‘Intergenerational continuity in offending’, Dr Formosa Pace examined a group of prisoners at the Corradino Correctional Facility serving sentences between 1950 and 2010.

Janice Formosa Pace. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

She slowly deciphered who was who and how they were related to one another, pain­stakingly mapping out 622 family trees which, in some cases, extended as far back as five generations.

She examined both restricted and extended family ties, ranging from parents to siblings and extending towards cousins, half-siblings and even step-siblings who were all, at some point, behind bars.

Crime families abound

The top three most common relationships were that of siblings, followed by parent-child (mainly father-son) and spouses.

“Crime families are generally repeat offenders and serve longer terms in prison than those who do not hail from crime families,” Dr Formosa Pace explained.

“They specialise in crimes that involve a certain element of planning and organisation, such as aggravated theft, robberies and drug-related offences.”

Many were economically inactive, indicating that criminal activity was their main and most lucrative source of income.

The larger the number of family members behind bars, the higher the risk of offending and the more serious the crime, Dr Formosa Pace discovered.

In those cases where two family members served time in prison, the average rate was that of two convictions per individual.

But in the case of six family members who were at some point behind bars, the rate shot up to four convictions per person.

With crime families of over 10 family members, the rate is that of seven convictions per head.

“Exposure to crime is a strong crime promoter. It shows the degree of influence family members have on one another.

“An interesting phenomenon is the type of crimes carried out. There’s a lot of similarity between crimes carried out by parents and their children. That shows that children tend to follow in their parents’ footsteps, even in the type of crimes they choose to carry out.”

Foreign research indicates that, when it comes to siblings, co-offending (committing a crime together with another person) is common. But abroad, instances of co-offending between parent and child are rare.

“In our case, it isn’t. Although the main relationship of co-offenders is that of siblings, this was followed by parents and their children. It is common in Malta to have parents and their children as partners in the same crime.”

The “birds of a feather flock together” saying seemed to apply to spouses or unmarried partners, who actively married or established a partnership with people from a similar background.

Crime families also tended to be concentrated in certain areas termed as “offender and poverty hotspots”. The top three localities were Valletta, Cospicua and Santa Luċija.

“Many crime families tend to live in the same areas – the incidence of siblings or children living in the same area as their other siblings or parents supersedes 40 per cent.

“This indicates that we have certain factors in our culture, such as proximity and insularity, that make it difficult to cut one’s ties with our families. So neighbourhood proximity could also be a promoter of crime.”

The existence of crime families was inevitable, Dr Formosa Pace added.

There had to be increased rehabilitation and support services which also targeted the family members of convicts, she suggested.