The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of broken home on juvenile delinquency in Yugoslavia during the period from 1953 to 1988.. The research was conducted of official data for: children from broken homes, juvenile delinquents from broken homes and juvenile delinquents from complete homes (families with both biological parents present). In Yugoslavia during the period from 1953 to 1988 thpre were 1.680.330 children from homes and 200.098 juvenile delinquents (adolscents 14-18 years old were sentenced in court for certain Criminal delicts). The results from this research show: first, that there were about 2.5 times more juvenile delinquents from complete homes that from broken homes; speond, that the trend of increase in number of children who live in broken homes was not parallele to the increase in amount of juvenile delinquency; to the contrary, there was a proportional decrese in juvenile delinquency (all correlation coefficients between broken home and juvenile delinquency were negative numbers in the range from - .62 to -.76 significant at X)1 level); and, third, that majority of juvenile delinquents from broken home category came from divorced parents. The results are compared with the data of other authors and discussed in terms of some theories of juvenile delinquency.
