Lecture 7: Youth Crime Flashcards
What is Youth Crime?
Young people ages 10-17 years old committing crime
What is the age of responsibility?
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
What is the Dark Figure of Crime?
- 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
Why are crime rates declining?
- Ageing population: less young people less crime
- Covid-19
What message does the Media perceive?
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
Is youth crime no longer a problem?
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
What is the Age crime curve
- strong association between age and offending
- The peak age for offending is in the teenage years
- Aggregated data–> Subgroups?
- Official data–> Childhood antisocial behaviour
What are the three stages which makes up a Criminal Career?
- Onset
- Persistence
- Desistance
What does Life-course criminology say?
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
What is a criminal careers?
- A criminal career is ‘the longitudinal sequence of crimes committed by an individual offender’
What does the development of offending theory suggest?
- 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
What are the three Stages of behaviour within developmental Pathways?
- Authority conflict Pathway
- Covert Pathway
- Overt Pathway
What is the Authority conflict Pathway?
This pathway represents conflict with, and avoidance of, authority figures as opposed to having respect for authority
Three sequential stages:
- begins with stubborn behaviour
- Characterised by defiance (doing things in their own way, refusing to do things, disobedience
- Characterised by authority avoidance (staying out late, running away)
Covert Pathway
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)
What is the Overt Pathway
This pathway represents aggression as opposed to positive problem-solving
- Aggression (annoying others, bullying)
- physical fighting (fighting at school, gang fighting)
- Violence (attacking someone, forced sex)