Lecture 7: Youth Crime Flashcards

1
Q

What is Youth Crime?

A

Young people ages 10-17 years old committing crime

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2
Q

What is the age of responsibility?

A

Age Of criminal responsibility:

  • England and Wales: 10 Years old
  • USA: 6-12 years old
  • Scotland, Netherlands, Canada= 12 Years Old
  • Sweden, Finland, Norway= 15 years old
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3
Q

What is the Dark Figure of Crime?

A
  • Crime that goes unreported
  • Official statistics never tell the full story
  • There could be much higher levels of youth crime which is going unreported and unrecorded
  • It’s always worth remembering this
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4
Q

Why are crime rates declining?

A
  • Ageing population: less young people less crime
  • Covid-19
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5
Q

What message does the Media perceive?

A

The Media make audiences believe that youth crime is in fact increasing- this is not true!

The media use youths as scapegoats and a way to create moral panics

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6
Q

Is youth crime no longer a problem?

A

Despite the media creating false moral panics this doesn’t mean that youth crime isn’t a serious probem.

–> signs that violent/sexual/drugrelated crime are slowly rising

–> Dark Figure of crime

–> crime is so common it is normative

–> Rates of crime remain the highest among children and young people

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7
Q

What is the Age crime curve

A
  • strong association between age and offending
  • The peak age for offending is in the teenage years
  • Aggregated data–> Subgroups?
  • Official data–> Childhood antisocial behaviour
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8
Q

What are the three stages which makes up a Criminal Career?

A
  1. Onset
  2. Persistence
  3. Desistance
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9
Q

What does Life-course criminology say?

A

Farrington (2003) Developmental/life-course criminology

  • the development of offending and antisocial behaviour–> Criminal careers
  • Risk Factors at different stages
  • The effects of life events on the course of development–> Persistence and desistance
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10
Q

What is a criminal careers?

A
  • A criminal career is ‘the longitudinal sequence of crimes committed by an individual offender’
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11
Q

What does the development of offending theory suggest?

A
  • Peak of offending is in the late teenage Yeats
  • Early onset predicts a criminal career
  • a small fraction of the population commits a large fraction of all crimes
  • Different types of offences tend to be first committed at distinctively different ages
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12
Q

What are the three Stages of behaviour within developmental Pathways?

A
  1. Authority conflict Pathway
  2. Covert Pathway
  3. Overt Pathway
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13
Q

What is the Authority conflict Pathway?

A

This pathway represents conflict with, and avoidance of, authority figures as opposed to having respect for authority

Three sequential stages:

  1. begins with stubborn behaviour
  2. Characterised by defiance (doing things in their own way, refusing to do things, disobedience
  3. Characterised by authority avoidance (staying out late, running away)
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14
Q

Covert Pathway

A

This pathway represents lying, vandalism and theft as opposed to honesty and respect for property

3 stages:
1. minor convert (lying)
2. Property damage (setting fires, vandalism)
3. Moderate to serious forms of delinquency (joyriding, pick-pocketing stealing from cars, fencing)

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15
Q

What is the Overt Pathway

A

This pathway represents aggression as opposed to positive problem-solving

  1. Aggression (annoying others, bullying)
  2. physical fighting (fighting at school, gang fighting)
  3. Violence (attacking someone, forced sex)
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16
Q

What are Risk Factors?

A

Risk Factor: an event that predicts an increased probability of an outcome (youth crime/antisocial behaviour)

(Probability is not the same as causality)

17
Q

What are the two risk factors?

A

Static risk factors: Cannot be manipulated/changed (eg. brain damage)

Dynamic Risk factors: can be manipulated/changes (eg. parenting)

18
Q

What are the four different types of risk factors?

A
  1. Individual
  2. Family
  3. Peer
  4. Community
19
Q

What are individual risk factors?

A

Biological and behavioural

  • Birth complications: difficult temperament
  • Genetics: Low intelligence and educational achievement
  • Prenatal development
20
Q

What are Family Risk factors? (Murray and Farrington 2010)

A
  • Low income/socioeconomic status
  • Childbearing
    –> poor parental supervision
    –> Inconsistent discipline
  • Parental conflict/disrupted families
    –> violence between parents
    –> Single childhood
  • Antisocial parents
    –> Antisocial personality disorder/behaviour problems
  • Parental substance abuse
  • Parental imprisonment
21
Q

What are Peer Risk Factors?

A
  • Peer rejection (Laird et al 2001)

–> Exclusion from peer group leads to ASB

  • Delinquent Peers
    –> socialisation: Bad company corrupts
    –> Selection: birds of a feather flock together
22
Q

What is the Sampson and Laubs’s theory?

A
  • Age-graded theory of informal social control

Key findings:
- crime is more likely to occur when an individual’s bond with mainstream, society is weak
- There are different informal social controls at different stages of the life course

23
Q

How does Sampson and Lamb’s theory account for Persistence?

A
  • They found that ‘highly delinquent’ boys are 7 time more likely to be arrested ages 25-32
  • They are also more likely to be involved in other ‘deviant’ behaviours in adulthood
  • They are more likely to in unstable unemployment, be economically dependent (On the State or on others) and be divorced in adulthood
24
Q

How does Sampson and Lamb’s theory account for Desistance?

A
  • Turning points lead to desistance form crime In adulthood
  • More supervision and monitoring
  • Changes in daily routine
  • Opportunity for identity transformation
25
Q

What factor determines desistance and Persistence

A

The quality of social bonds!

Examples:
–> high quality jobs and job stability
–> Marital attachment term committed relationship
–> Marriage and parenthood promote desistance

26
Q

What two types of offenders did Moffitt discover

A
  1. Adolescence Limited: Theft, substance abuse, vandalism
  2. Life-course persistent: Variety of offends Violence
    –> Small groups: 5% responsible for about 50% of crimes
27
Q

What was Moffatt’s Dual Taxonomy of ASB?

A
  • Longitudinal study
  • 1037 boys and girls were followed from the age of 3 through to 36 Years old
  • Antisocial behaviour
  • Three different reporting agents- teachers, parents and self
28
Q

What are Life-course Persistent offenders?

A

Onset: Neuropsychological deficits
–> verbal deficits (listening, reading, problem solving, writing, memory)

Result:
- Difficult child
- Interaction with (criminogenic environment)

29
Q

What Are Adolescence Limited Offenders

A

Onset: Motivation and mimicry

–> Maturity gap

–> social mimicry of the antisocial style of life-course persistent youths

30
Q
A