Causes of crime Flashcards
Lifestyle theory of offending
by Walters
- development of a criminal lifestyle -> change
- features of a criminal lifestyle: social rule-breaking, irresponsibility, self-indulgence, interpersonal intrusiveness
- Development trhough: hedonistic motivation, excitement- seeking, personal advantage
Social learning theory of offending
by Patterson
- ideas of coercion, based on systematic observation of interactions between parents and children
- actions that are rewarded are more likely to occur subsequently, and actions that are punished are less likely to occur
Aggression: aggression is learned through direct experience or observation
Personality theory of offending
by Eysenck
- behavioral consistency due to underlying personality traits
- peoples` hedonistic tendency to commit crimes is opposed by the conscience
- offenders do not have a strong conscience due to poor conditionability
- Eysenck´s personality dimensions: Extraversion, Neuroticism, Psychoticism
- 5 factor model of personality (FFM): Extraversion, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Openness, Conscientiousness
Attachment theory
- the importance of attachment between child and primary caretaker
- attachment styles: secure, anxious-preoccupied, dismissive-avoidant, fearful-avoidant
- explanations for the relationship between broken homes and delinquency:
1. Trauma theories (loss of parent - damaging effect)
2. Life-course theories (stressful childhood experiences)
3. Selection theories (pre-exisitng differences in families)
Social Information-Processing theory of offending
- explains aggression and delinquent behavior to examine individual differences
6 step model:
- Encoding of social cues
- Interpretation and mental representation of the situation
- Clarification of goals/outcomes for the situation
- Access or construction of responses
- Choice of response
- Performance of chosen response
Moral reasoning theory of offending
- moral reasoning: how people reason about and justify their behavior in respect to moral issues
Gibbs stages of sociomoral reasoning:
Immature moral reasoning
- unilateral and physicalistic (offender is morally justified if punishment is avoided)
- Exchanging and instrumental (offender is morally justified if benefits to the individual outweigh the costs)
Mature moral reasoning
- Mutual and prosocial (offender is morally justified if it maintains personal relationships)
- Systemic and standard (offender is morally justified if it maintains society or is sanctioned by a social institution)
Terrorism
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Adolescents-Limited VS
Life-Course Persistent Offending
- Life-course-persistent offenders (LCP): start early, persist, wide range of offences, due to cognitive deficits, under-controlled temperament, hyperactivity, poor parenting, low SES
- Adolescence-limited offenders (AL): offend only in teenage year, rebellious offences, due to maturity gap, and peer influence, can easily stop because they have few neuropsychological deficits
Additional categories:
- Abstainers
- Low level chronic offenders
- Recoveries
Age-Graded Informal Social Control Theory
of offending
by sampson and Laub
age-graded informal social control: measured by strength of bonding to family, peers, schools, adult institutions (jobs, marriage)
- opportunities not important
- official labeling leads to an increase in offending
- offending decreases over time
Interactional Theory of offending
by Thornberry and Krohn
- focus on factors accouraging antisocial behavior at different ages:
Birth -6: neuropsychological deficits and difficult temperament, parenting deficits, structural adversity
6-12: neighborhood and family
12 - 18: school and peers, deviant opportunities, gangs
18-25 (late starters): cognitive deficits, difficulty to transition into adulthood
Developmental Prospensity Theory of offending
by lahey and waldman
- development of conduct disorder and juvenile delinquency, focus childhood and adolescence
- key construct: antisocial prpernsity: persists over time, wide variety of behavioral manifestations
Components:
- low cognitive ability
- prosociality (sympathy and empathy)
- inhibition
- negative emotionality
- genetic basis
Integrated Cognitive Antisocial Potential
(ICAP) theory
Antisocial Potential (AP): the potential to commit aantisocial acts
- Short-term AP: motivation, situation
- Long-term AP: impulsiveness, strain, modelling, socialization processes, life events
I3 theory of aggression
-process-oriented metatheory designed to identify the circumstances under which nonagressive interaction becomes aggressive
- Instigating triggers: discrete situational events that induce action tendencies toward physical aggression
- Impelling forces: risk factors that determine the strength of the aggressive impulse (cultural and evolutionary, personal, dyadic, situational)
- Inhibiting forces: cultural and evolutionary, personal, dyadic, situational
General aggression model of aggression
“A heap of stones is not a house”
- Person and situation inputs, or risk factors for aggression
- Interconnected affective, arousal, and cognitive routes that influence aggressive behavior
- outcomes of underlying appraisal and decision processes
Cognitive neoassociation model of aggression
- aversive events cause negative affect -> stimulates fight and flight
- memories of aggressive cues -> lead to future aggression
- aversive events increase aggressive inclinations (via negative affect)
Excitation transfer theory of aggression
- arousal from first event may be misattributed to the second (shortly after first event ) event
- if second event is related to ander- then additional arousal should b´make the person even angrier
Interactional model of aggression
- interpret aggresive behavior as social influence behavior
- actions can be used by somebody to obtain something of value
- aggression motivated by higher level goals
- aggression is often the result of threats to high self-esteem
Four Precondictions model of sexual offending
preconditions that a child molester must pass throgh prior to an offence:
- motivation to sexually abuse
- internal inhibitions against offending must be overcome
- external factors must be overcome to allow the abuse to color
- Child`s resistance must be overcome, through using force or grooming techniques
Quadripartite model of sexual offending
components necessary fo an offence to take place:
- Sexual arousal to children
- Attitudes and beliefs that justify child abuse
- poor self-regulation
- Personality problems
Pathway model of sexual offending
interacting but seperate psychological mechanisms involved in child sexual abuse:
- Intimacy/social deficits
- Distorted sexual scripts
- cognitive distortions
- emotional dysregulation
Interaction model of sexual aggression
secual aggression is the result of the interaction of two paths:
- hostile masculinity path (emphasizes the role of aggressive intimate relationships and sexual conquest, valuing power, risk-taking, dominance, competitiveness)
- sexual promiscuity path (role of sexual behaviors in maintaining self-esteem and peer-status)
Integrated theory of sexual offending (2006)
- includes biological, neuropsychological, and ecological factors
- sexual offending results from vulnerabilities that predispose an individual to sexual offending
Nested ecological model
risk factors identified by their relative proximity to the individual
- Macrosystem (broad societal/cultural influences)
- Mesosystem (social group influences)
- Microsystem (interpersonal relationship influences)
- Ontogenetic (individual developmental/internal influences)
Script theory
- aggression shown in mass media: children learn aggressive scripts (define situations and guide behaviors, highly associated concepts in memory)
Integrated theory of offending (1990)
- includes biological, developmental, socio-cultural and situational variables
- negative childhood experiences lead to problems in forming social, emotional and sexual attachments
- during puberty and the hormonal changes: sex and violence can be linked
Weakness: does not provide explanations for why different types of sexual offending occur
