Bowlby

• Summary: bowlby stresses the importance of the parent - child relationship (especially mother - child relationship) and without this a child will turn to criminality
• Strength: Bowlby’s research showed that more of his actual sample had suffered from maternal deprivation (39%) compared to his control group (5%)
• Strength: His work showed that importance of a child-parent relationship when discussing criminality.
• Weakness: Retrospective study where children and parents had to recall the past meaning it may not be valid 
• Weakness: Does not explain why the the other 61% of his sample turned to crime
• Weakness: He did another study on 100 children who had been separated from their parents and found no evidence of ‘affectionless psychopathy’
• Weakness: Sammons + Putwain not that the link between criminality and Bowlby's theory is no longer accepted in society.