Transcript Slide 1

DEVELOPMENTAL
THEORIES: CRIME AND THE
LIFE COURSE
Developmental Theories
• Human personality and behavioral patterns emerge
through a developmental process that unfolds from
birth onward
• What occurs early in life may shape what occurs later in life
• Criminology had traditionally ignored the work on the
life course
• Focused on sociology and had little interest in how
individuals developed over time
• Rather, focused on what happens when an
individual is placed in a certain social context
Developmental Theories
•
Developmental perspectives are dynamic
•
Studies whether an individual’s behavior remains stable or
changes over time
•
Traditional criminological theories are static
•
•
•
Assumes contexts have stable and enduring effects on people
caught in them
Pay little attention to what occurs in childhood; rather, often focus on
adolescence or adulthood
This lack of focus on the childhood is probably due to two factors:
1.
Participation in crime peaks in the teenage years (around 17 or 18), thus
the relevance of childhood was not apparent
•
2.
It made sense to ask about the teen/juvenile years
Studying juveniles was practical
•
Teens were an ideal population to investigate
because it was easy to survey them in school and get
self-report data
Developmental Theories
• Most early research on adolescents was cross-
sectional
• Do not follow youth over time, but rather studies subjects at
one point in time
• Time- and cost-effective
• Cannot consider factors that occur over time
• Longitudinal research studies subjects over time
• Can see how early events in life impact later life events
• Difficult, requires teams of researchers, cost-
and time-intensive
Glueck and Glueck’s Research
• Some longitudinal research did occur and had a great impact
• Sampson and Laub (1993) reexamined Glueck and Glueck’s
(1950) matched sample study of 500 delinquent and 500
nondelinquent boys
• White males ages 10 to 17 matched on age, race, neighborhood
characteristics, and intelligence
• Delinquents from two juvenile reformatories in Massachusetts and
nondelinquents from Boston public schools
• The Gluecks followed up with the boys at ages 25 and 32
• Sutherland attacked this work, saying it was atheoretical and
downplayed sociological factors
• Sociologists rejected the work, saying it was flawed methodologically and
portrayed offenders as biologically deficient
Glueck and Glueck’s Research
•
•
The Gluecks’ work showed the importance of highlighting the
differences between delinquents and nondelinquents
This research had three important contributions:
Embraced a multifactor approach where the causes of crime
were driven by the data, not a single theory
2. Showed early antisocial behavior was related to later
criminal behavior and thus criminal involvement was
a dynamic developmental process
1.
•
Good deal of stability from youth to early adulthood
•
Criminal involvement is developmental; what happens
at one stage in life influences what happens at the next
Showed antisocial youths not only are shaped by their
circumstances but also impact the social world
3.
•
They are architects of their future and can knife off
opportunities
Developmental (or Life Course) Theories
• Relatively few youths suddenly become serious, chronic
offenders during the juvenile years
• A range of conduct problems arise during childhood
• Childhood antisocial behavior is perhaps the strongest predictor of
involvement in serious juvenile offending
• Three theoretical implications:
1.
Central causes of crime lie in childhood
2.
Theories focusing on what happens in the teen years are
incomplete, if not incorrect
3.
Link between childhood and later deviance shows a dynamic
developmental process
Developmental (or Life Course) Theories
•
Developmental theories of crime attempt to explain why people develop into
and out of crime
•
They all tend to agree that childhood is a time during which a criminal trajectory
starts, which they call onset
•
Also agree that some individual differences in the propensity for crime are
established very early in the life course
Use the term “heterogeneity” to describe how people vary in their orientation toward
criminal conduct
•
•
Initial theories can be divided into three categories:
Theories of continuity
1.

Behavior is continuous and stable
Theories of continuity or change
2.

Behavior is either continuous/stable or begins on one pathway and departs heading in an
alternative direction
Theories of continuity and change
3.

Behavior is continuous/stable but can also begin on one pathway and depart heading in an
alternative direction
Theories of Continuity
• Individual trait perspectives tend to be theories of
continuity
• Argue that once a trait emerges or becomes part of
someone’s personality, this trait is hard to “get rid of”
• The person carries the criminogenic trait across time and
social contexts
• Since the trait is enduring, the involvement in crime is also
enduring
• Sociological theories are implicitly continuity theories
• Imply once a person is criminal, they remain criminal
• Rarely address desistance; however some do (Sampson and
Laub)
Gottfredson and Hirschi: A General
Theory of Crime
• Individual trait theories would have to explain how a
crime-producing trait vanished to explain desistance
• Most important theory of continuity is Gottfredson and
Hirschi’s self-control theory
• Published in A General Theory of Crime
• A variety of a control theory
• Suggests that an enduring propensity to commit crime, called self-
control, emerges in childhood
Gottfredson and Hirschi: A General
Theory of Crime
• Link the failure to develop internal controls to the
failure of parents to supervise their children,
recognize deviant behavior, and punish and correct
such conduct when it occurs
• People with low self-control are impulsive, short-
sighted, risk taking, nonverbal, and insensitive
• Believe that once established, low self-control is
highly resistant to being altered and this trait impacts
people at every stage of their life
Gottfredson and Hirschi: A General
Theory of Crime
• This is a theory of continuity because it is argued that individuals can
never escape from their low self-control
• Self-control theory begins as a sociological theory but ends as an
individual difference theory
• Self-control is produced by parenting but, once established, self-control is set
for life
• Self-control theory is a rejection of Hirschi’s social bond theory
• Argues weak social bonds and crime are caused by low self-control
• Argue the age–crime curve is invariant across societies, but no theory
has been developed to explain it
• However, differences in crime tendencies across individuals remain relatively
stable across the life course
Differences between Hirschi’s Two
Theories
Dimension of the Theory
Gottfredson and Hirschi’s
General Theory of Crime
Hirschi’s Social Bond Theory
Nature of control
Self-control
Social bonds
Type of control
Internal
External (social): due to the
quality of relationships to society
Stability of control
Established in childhood:
individual differences in selfcontrol persist throughout life
Control may change across life as
the strength of the social bonds
change
Relationship of bonds to
crime
Quality of bonds and level of
crime both caused by level of
self-control
Causes crime; quality of bonds
determines level of crime
Theories of Continuity or Change
•
These theories argue there are two different pathways, with
one marked with continuity and the other marked with change
•
Moffitt argues the peak of crime in the teenage years seen in
the age–crime curve conceals two groups that take different
developmental pathways into crime
•
Her two-group taxonomy includes:
1.
Life-course-persistent offenders (LCPs)
2.
Adolescence-limited offenders (ALs)
•
During adolescence, the age–crime curve peaks because both
the LCPs and ALs are offending
Moffitt: “Pathways in the Life Course to
Crime”
• Life-course-persistent offenders start antisocial acts
early and continue their waywardness into and
beyond adolescence
• Continuity is the hallmark of this group
• Make up a small percentage of the population (roughly 5%)
• Their antisocial behavior is stable from preschool to
adulthood and across social contexts (e.g., home, school,
work, etc.)
• The underlying antisocial disposition remains the same, but
its expression changes form as new social opportunities arise
• Bite at age 4, skip school at age 10, steal at age 16,
drugs at age 20, rob at age 30, etc.
sell
Moffitt: “Pathways in the Life Course to
Crime”
• LCPs
• The developmental process begins with neuropsychological deficits
• Normal brain development is disrupted through pre- or postnatal
exposure to drugs, poor nutrition, injury, exposure to toxins, lack of
stimulation, etc. resulting in psychological deficits
• Leads to high activity levels, irritability, poor self-control, low cognitive ability,
etc.
• Verbal and executive functions are particularly important and have been
found to be associated with antisocial behavior across the life course
• Verbal deficits affect listening, reading, problem solving,
expressive speech, writing, and memory
• Executive functioning produces a compartmental learning
• Includes inattention and impulsivity
disability
Moffitt: “Pathways in the Life Course to
Crime”
• Neuropsychological refers to anatomical structures
and physiological processes within the nervous
system that influence psychological characteristics
such as temperament, behavioral development,
and/or cognitive abilities
• Neuropsychological deficits impact a child’s cognitive, motor,
and/or personality development
• Low birth weights and symptoms of brain dysfunction have
been shown to be related to difficult temperaments at ages 1,
2, and 3 and other problems as the child ages (e.g.,
overactivity, impulsivity, temper tantrums, poor attention, poor
school performance), which is linked to even further
antisocial behavior in the future
Moffitt: “Pathways in the Life Course to
Crime”
• These individual traits/neuropsychological deficits are linked to
misconduct and social failure throughout life
• Lock individuals into crime by the way they interact with the social
environment to create disadvantage and ensnare individuals in an
antisocial life
• Often evoke harsh/erratic parenting (evocative interactions) because
they are more difficult and have more deficits
• Interpret ambiguous situations as hostile and people as having harmful
intent (reactive interactions)
• Select and create environments that support their deviant lifestyles
(proactive interactions)
• Research has shown they associate with, and even marry, deviant others
Moffitt: “Pathways in the Life Course to
Crime”
• On top of neuropsychological deficits, these children
are often not born into intact, wealthy families
• Rather, these vulnerable children are born into
disadvantaged families
• Often raised in criminogenic environments and see stability
in aggression across generations
• Parents and children resemble one another on temperament,
personality, and cognitive abilities
• Parents often lack the physical and psychological
to handle a difficult child
resources
Moffitt: “Pathways in the Life Course to
Crime”
•
Overall, individual deficits or traits produce stability
of offending in LCPs in two interrelated ways:
By the traits constant, contemporary
effects/consequences
1.
•
By the way the traits foster cumulative continuity
2.
•
•
Carries the same underlying traits from childhood to
adulthood
By leading to lost opportunities, failures, and poor choices
that prune away the options for change (snowball effect)
Support found for both of these factors
Moffitt: “Pathways in the Life Course to
Crime”
•
There are two sources of continuity that narrow the options for
change:
Failing to learn conventional prosocial behavior
1.
•
Behavioral repertoires consist almost solely of antisocial behaviors
•
Miss out on opportunities at each stage of development to acquire and
practice prosocial alternatives
Becoming ensnared in a deviant lifestyle by crime’s consequences
2.
•
Often make irrevocable decisions that close off opportunities
•
Teenage parenthood, drug/alcohol addiction, patchy work histories,
time incarcerated
•
Labeled as “bad” and get a bad reputation
•
Interventions with LCPs have not been very successful
•
The theory of LCPs emphasizes the constant process of reciprocal
interactions between personal traits and the environmental reactions
to them
Moffitt: “Pathways in the Life Course to
Crime”
• Adolescence-limited offenders start and finish their criminality
during the teenage years
• Change or discontinuity is the hallmark of this group
• Change is often abrupt, starting in adolescence and ending in early
adulthood
• This groups restricts their criminality to the teenage years
• This is a very large group of individuals (almost all adolescents)
• As youths enter adolescence, their developmental challenge is to
overcome the maturity gap created by the mismatch between their
adult biological development and modern society’s expectation that
they refrain from adult behaviors for several years (e.g., sexual
activity, smoking, drinking)
• This gap between social and biological maturity
is their motivation for delinquency
Moffitt: “Pathways in the Life Course to
Crime”
• ALs
• Motivation for delinquency is translated into social mimicry
• Youth model/imitate the delinquent conduct of other adolescents,
usually the LCPs in their own age cohort or older youths
• Thus, during adolescence, LCPs often become popular because they are role
models for the AL youth
• ALs often offend in groups, while LCPs will offend alone
• Delinquency is self-reinforcing in that it shows,
symbolically, autonomy from adults and maturity
• Seen as a statement of independence and maturity
• Adulthood brings desistance
• The maturity gap closes, adult conventional roles become available
• Consequences of crime escalate and there is a decrease in
the appeal and reinforcements of delinquency (e.g., can lose job,
spouse, kids, etc.)—commitment costs
Moffitt: “Pathways in the Life Course to
Crime”
• AL’s causal factors are proximate and specific to the period of
adolescent development
• Under reinforcement and punishment contingencies
• Only act antisocially when it is instrumental
• Lack consistency across situations (e.g., home, school, with peers,
etc.)
• Some ALs can become trapped into crime well into their adult
years
• Teen pregnancy, drug/alcohol addiction, incarceration, etc.
• However, unlike their LCP counterparts, most ALs desist from
crime
• Thus, their antisocial behavior is characterized by discontinuity, or
change, and is limited to their adolescent years
• Exempt from contemporary consequences and cumulative
continuity
Moffitt: “Pathways in the Life Course to
Crime”
•
Adolescents who do not engage in crime may not
have:
Experienced the maturity gap
1.
•
Late puberty or early initiation into adult roles
•
Lack the motivation for experimenting with crime
Had access to antisocial role models
2.
•
Fewer opportunities in rural than urban areas
•
Have personalities that make them unattractive to other
teens
•
Tense, overcontrolled, lack personal skills, timid, etc.
Moffitt: “Pathways in the Life Course to
Crime”
• Although people have questioned whether or not there
are more than two groups of offenders, research has
shown support for Moffitt’s theory of life-course-persistent
and adolescence-limited offenders
Theories of Continuity and Change
• Sampson and Laub, using the Gluecks’ data,
published two classic books, Crime in the Making and
Shared Beginnings, Divergent Lives
• Here is where they presented their age-graded social bond
theory
• Supplemented the Gluecks’ data by following up the sample
until age 70 and interviewing 52 men
• Argued pathways and turning points characterize a life
course
• Thus, there is both continuity and change in behavior
Laub and Sampson: “A Theory of Persistent
Offending and Desistance from Crime”
• Argue people can be caught in pathways or life
trajectories that form a continuous line over time
• May extend from childhood, and there is considerable
evidence that antisocial behavior is relatively stable across
the life course
• But also argue there are turning points
• Events in life that can change a life
trajectory
• Examples: marriage, work, and school
Laub and Sampson: “A Theory of Persistent
Offending and Desistance from Crime”
• A complex set of factors combine to entrench a child
on an antisocial pathway
• Individual differences (e.g., difficult temperament, early
conduct problems)
• Disadvantaged environments (e.g., unstable family life)
• The above conditions foster ineffective and rejecting
parenting, decrease the chances the child will do well in
school, may lead to exposure to delinquent peers and
siblings which may result in delinquent behavior
• This weakens social bonds, which makes future delinquency
and then adult crime more likely
• This is a form of cumulative continuity where family, school, and work
opportunities are “knifed off”
Laub and Sampson: “A Theory of Persistent
Offending and Desistance from Crime”
• However, people can get out of this criminal pathway
• If an individual establishes conventional social bonds, this
will lead to social control, and has the potential to change
behavior
• Social bonds can arise during childhood (e.g., attachment to
parents), adolescence (e.g., ties to school), and adulthood
(e.g., marriage)
• Change occurs when offenders acquire quality
social bonds (e.g., a good job or marriage)
Laub and Sampson: “A Theory of Persistent
Offending and Desistance from Crime”
•
Thus, fresh ties to conventional society may allow people to
overcome their criminal propensities and divert them from crime
•
The same individual can experience both continuity and change
in offending
•
Laub and Sampson found support for their theory
•
Following men up to age 70, they showed almost all men
desisted from crime
•
Argue that turning points (quality social bonds) lead to desistance
by:
1. Knifing off the past from the present
2. Providing supervision, monitoring, and opportunities for social support and
growth
3. Bring change in and structure to routine activities
4. Provide an opportunity for identity transformation
Laub and Sampson: “A Theory of Persistent
Offending and Desistance from Crime”
• Desistance happens by default
• There is no conscious decision to stop being criminal; rather, they have
invested so much in the marriage, job, parenthood, etc. that they do not want
to risk losing it
• However, desistance can involve human agency
• People have some choice within their given social context or situation
• Brings motivation back into the theory
• Can have some motivation to change within situational considerations
• However, Laub and Sampson do not see this motivation as an enduring
trait/orientation
• Rather it is situational and emerges from person–environment interactions
• This makes adult development unpredictable (unlike Moffitt’s theory)
• Cannot determine at what point in life people will desist
• Not a predictable, universal sequence of steps
• Turning points are fortuitous events
Laub and Sampson: “A Theory of Persistent
Offending and Desistance from Crime”
• Persistent offenders are those who did not have quality
social bonds or turning points
• Their lives are marked with much marital, residential, and job
instability, failure in school, and long periods of incarceration
• Also in contact with others like them, which increases their
offending
Laub and Sampson: “A Theory of Persistent
Offending and Desistance from Crime”
• Overall, offending is explained by individual differences,
environmental differences, social interactions, and
random, chance events
• No set pathway, each individual is different and has a different life
course of offending
• These postulations have had support in the empirical research
Giordano et al.: “Cognitive Transformation and
Desistence from Crime”
•
Most theories of crime are explanations of the onset and
persistence of offending
•
Try to explain why some individuals, but not others, engage in
crime
•
Giordano, Cernkovich, and Rudolph especially concentrate on
desistence
•
Argue desistence is a dynamic, interactive process that involves
both opportunities for change and active efforts to interpret the
world and themselves differently
•
Two interrelated components are needed for desistence:
1.
2.
Offenders must have opportunities to develop conventional ties to
society
Four interrelated cognitive transformations must occur
Giordano et al.: “Cognitive Transformation and
Desistence from Crime”
• Focus mainly on cognitive shifts that occur as an integral part of
the desistance process
• Differ from Sampson and Laub
• Giordano et al. emphasize the actor’s own role in creatively and
selectively appropriating elements in the environment such as a
good spouse or job rather than these events being fortuitous
• Call these hooks for change rather than turning points
• The actor must latch onto these hooks
• These opportunities serve as catalysts for lasting change when they
energize fundamental shifts in identity and changes in the meaning and
desirability of deviant/criminal behavior
• Place a greater emphasis than Sampson and Laub on the actor’s own
role
Giordano et al.: “Cognitive Transformation and
Desistence from Crime”
•
This viewpoint is useful for:
1.
Highlighting the important period when actors make initial
attempts to veer off a deviant pathway
2.
Accommodating the observation that quite a few individuals
exposed to prosocial experiences fail to take advantage of them
3.
Focusing on cognitive changes, rather than a small set of
predictors
Giordano et al.: “Cognitive Transformation and
Desistence from Crime”
•
Argue cognitive shifts or four cognitive transformations
must be present for desistance to occur
1.
The actor’s openness for change
2.
Exposure to a hook for change
3.
The actor’s ability to envision a replacement self
4.
Transformation in how the actor views the deviant behavior or
lifestyle itself
Giordano et al.: “Cognitive Transformation and
Desistence from Crime”
• General openness for change
• Need to be open or believe that they can change
• This is insufficient by itself for change
• Exposure to hooks for change
• Must have an opportunity to change
• A fundamental premise is that both exposure to
a
hook and one’s attitude toward it are
important elements of successful change
• Must see the opportunity as a positive development and
define the new state of affairs as incompatible with continued
deviation
Giordano et al.: “Cognitive Transformation and
Desistence from Crime”
• Actor’s ability to envision a replacement self
• This replacement self supplants the marginal one
• Forms a new identity
• Sees it as inappropriate for “someone like me” to engage in
deviant behavior
• Acts as a cognitive filter for decision making
• The identity transformation potential of the hooks for change
is present
• This is different from the control aspect of turning points in
Sampson and Laub’s theory
Giordano et al.: “Cognitive Transformation and
Desistence from Crime”
•
Transformation in how the actor views the deviant
behavior or lifestyle itself
•
The actor no longer sees the deviant behaviors he/she used to
engage in as positive, viable, or even personally relevant
•
The process of desistence is complete at this stage
Giordano et al.: “Cognitive Transformation and
Desistence from Crime”
• The four cognitive transformations not only are related to
one another but also inspire and direct behavior
• Actions flow from these cognitive shifts that cannot be explained
solely with references to predictor effects (e.g., how the spouse
controls the offender)
Giordano et al.: “Cognitive Transformation and
Desistence from Crime”
• Overall:
• Argue that individuals vary in what they bring to the desistence
process
• Differences in preferences and levels of motivation
• There is a dynamic interplay between the individual and catalysts
for change which explains why some individuals exposed to a
given catalyst fail to hook onto it
• The hooks for change vary in their transformative potential
• Successful hooks provide an actor with a detailed plan of action or a
cognitive blueprint, often have a projective element directing the actor’s
attention toward the future, and are associated with positive themes
• Provide the actor with new definitions and replacement behaviors
• More successful if provide a gateway to conforming others who can reinforce
the actor’s initial forays into prosocial behavior
Giordano et al.: “Cognitive Transformation and
Desistence from Crime”
• Overall:
• The individual has an important role in selecting adult friendships and romantic
partners who have the potential to be good influences while knifing off
undesirable companions
• Argue their theory and Sampson and Laub’s can be integrated
• Combine their ideas with Sampson and Laub’s focus on investment buildup
• Highly invested actors develop a strong stake in conformity and do not want to jeopardize
what they have accumulated
• However, need to recognize that a minimum level of resources is needed to start the
transformation process
• Calling on the help of others can provide structure and guidance along the way
• Over time the actors will have built up prosocial relationships, but will have come to
enjoy the investing process as well
• In turn, they will refrain from criminal behavior because they have much to lose and
they look back on their prior deviant life with disdain
• This leads to internalized control
Summary
• Developmental theories are now very prominent and are taking a
dominant role in the field
• Their main proposition that crime is a dynamic process that
potentially begins in childhood and occurs across the life course is
indisputable
• Some theories are theories of continuity (Gottfredson and Hirschi),
while others are theories of continuity or change (Moffitt), while still
others are theories of continuity and change (Sampson and Laub)
• Theories, now, need to be able to address the onset,
maintenance, and desistance of criminal behavior across the life
course in order to be seen as thorough and viable theories