week 13 - developmental and life course criminology Flashcards
the age-crime curve
- crime peaks in adolescence (around 17 years old) and declines in adulthood
- this pattern generally holds across countries, time, gender, measurement type
- contention whether the presence of age crime curve is due to prevalence or incidence
prevalence
the proportion of people in a population that are committing a crime
- how many people are actually offending
incidence
the number of crimes that are being committed by active offenders
- are active offenders offending more in adolescence
early criminology theory
- focuses on explaining crime on in0between differences adolescence
-> why does one person commit crime, but another does not?
-> primarily used in cross-sectional research designs - theorists started to realize that things happen at one stage of life influences what happens at subsequent stages
(where we began getting longitudinal research design)
longitudinal research designs
- assess one person over multiple time points
- allows for the examination within-individual change over time
- demonstrated that crime in adolescence was often related to crime in late adolescence and early adulthood
- led to the emergence of the criminal career framework
the criminal career framework
- people who commit crime have a “career” much like people who have legitimate careers
criminal career
- framework for describing what a person’s offending looks like over their life course
- not the same as “career criminal”
dimensions of the criminal career
onset
- when does the person start offending (age of onset)?
duration
- how long does the person offend?
frequency
- how frequently is the person offending?
desistance
- when does the person stop offending?
varying risk factors
the factors affecting each of these dimensions might not be identical
ie:
- sexual abuse might be an important factor to explain the onset of offending for girls
- problematic substance use might be important in explaining the duration for girls
DLC: Continuity and Change
the criminal career framework laid the foundation for developmental and life course (DLC) criminology
key focus on continuity and change in offending across the life course
- only continuity in offending (gen theory of crime)
- continuity OR change (Dual Taxonomy)
- continuity AND change (age graded theory of informal social control)
general theory of crime
- argued that low self-control could explain “all crime all the time”
- argued that low self control is developed or failed to, by 8-10 years old; after that, it was a stable individual-level characteristic
gen theory of crime: continuity
- argued that there was continuity in offending over the life course
ie: kids with behavioural problems become the adolescents involved in delinquency become the adults involved in crime - gottfredson and hirschi attributed this continuity to “stable individual level differences (differences in low self control)
dual taxonomy
- moffitt (1993) proposed 2 “types” of offenders based on the age crime curve;
adolescence limited (AL) and life course persistent (LCP)
-> peak is due to an increased number of individuals actively offending at the time (prevalence) - uses categorizations of AL and LCP to explain:
-> AL offenders are marked by change
-> LCP offenders are marked by continuity - each type of offender commits crime due to entirely different factors
LCP offender (10%)
- childhood
- for life
- high severity
- neuropsychological deficits and a criminogenic environment
AL offender
- starts in adolescence
- adolescence limited
- maturity gap social mimicry
AL etiology
- maturity gap and social mimicry
Maturity Gap
Gap between biological maturity and social maturity (leads to strain)
- AL offenders stop offending because they have bridged the maturity
Social Mimicry
drawn from social learning theory (imitation, modelling)
- LCP group = role models to the AL group
LCP etiology
two dominant risk factors:
— neuropsychological deficits
— criminogenic environment
neuropsychological deficits
- prenatal, birth, very early childhood risk factors
- causes issues with temperament behaviour, and cognition
criminogenic environment
- emphasized poor parenting (lack of monitoring, inconsistent discipline, harsh discipline)
abstainers
- a small proportion of the population of people never engage in crime
— socially maladapted, do not have normal peer relations - blocked from normal peer groups due to personal characteristics, no opportunity to mimic LCP peers
policy implications of the dual taxonomy
- emphasis on the prenatal and perinatal stages of life because the most significant and effective interventions can occur at this stage
— universal health care for pregnant women and their newborns
— universal preschool (prepare kids academically and socially for elementary school)
— nurse visit program for high-risk pregnancies
prenatal and early childhood nurse home visit program
- targeted low income first time parents
- nurse would conduct home visits
age graded theory of informal social control
- robert sampson and john laub
—often referred to as life course criminology - largely derived from tradition sociological perspectives (social bonds)
- primary focus on change AND continuity across the life course
— change -> turning points
— continuity -> cumulative continuity of disadvantage
LCC: Change
- change in offending occurred through investment in social institutions and relationships (turning points)
— employment, marriage, military service - the timing of turning points matters as well (parenthood)
LCC: Continuity
Cumulative Continuity of Disadvantage
— delinquency tends to continue into adulthood because of its negative consequences for future life chances
ie arrest, incarceration, labelling, school, failure, unemployment
