Chapter 9: Developmental Theories: Life Course, Latent Trait, and Trajectory

Developmental criminology

A view of criminal behavior that places emphasis on the changes people go through over the life course. It presents a criminal career as a dynamic process involving onset, continuity, persistence, acceleration, and eventual desistance from criminal behavior, controlled by individual level traits and conditions.

Trajectory theory

A view of criminal career formation that holds there are multiple paths to crime. There is more than a single path to crime, there are different classes and types of criminals. There is more than a single path to crime; there are different classes and type of criminals. Important life events can produce a transition in the life course and change the direction of a person's life course trajectory; this is referred to as turning points. Major Premise: There is more than one pathway to crime. Strengths: Explains the existence of different types and classes of criminals. Research Focus: Measuring different criminal paths.

General Theory of Crime (GTC)

According to Gottfredson and Hirschi, a developmental theory that modifies social control theory by integrating concepts from biosocial, psychological, routine activities, and rational choice theories. Links the propensity to commit crime to an impulsive personality and a lack of self-control. Major Premise: Crime and criminality are separate concepts. People choose to commit crime when they lack self-control. People lacking self-control will seize criminal opportunities. Strengths: Integrates choice and social control concepts. Identifies the difference between crime and criminality. Research Focus: Measure associations among impulsivity, low self-control, and criminal behaviors.

Self-control theory

According to Gottfredson and Hirschi, the view that the cause of delinquent behavior is an impulsive personality. Kids who are impulsive may find that their bond to society is weak.

Turning points

According to Laub and Sampson, the life events that alter the development of a criminal career.

Social capital

Positive relations with individuals and institutions that are life sustaining.

Empirical Support for GTC

Research in the United States and abroad supports GTC.

The Elements of Impulsivity: Signs that a Person Has Low Self-Control

• Insensitive. • Physical. • Shortsighted. • Here-and-now orientation. • Unstable social relations. • Enjoys deviant behaviors. • Risk taker. • Refuses to work for distant goals. • Lacks diligence. • Lacks tenacity. • Adventuresome. • Self-centered. • Shameless. • Imprudent. • Lacks cognitive and verbal skills. • Enjoys danger and excitement.

Evolving latent trait

Flexible, varying, influenced by human interaction, personal relationships, contact, and associations.

Analyzing the General Theory of Crime

GTC is one of the most important criminological theories of the past few decades. The strength lies in scope and breadth: explain all forms of crime and deviance.

Integrated theories (systematic theories)

Models of crime causation that weave social and individual variables into a complex explanatory chain. Theories that account for onset, continuance, and desistance from crime.

How can the aging-out process be explained?

People may appear to age out of crime as they mature because there are few opportunities to commit crimes and greater inducements to remain straight.

The Marriage Factor

People who maintain a successful marriage and become parents are the most likely to mature out of crime.

Social Schematic Theory (SST)

Reoccurring, persistent, and memorable social factors blunt tendencies towards sympathy, fairness, and cooperation, leading to crime.

Learning or Biology?

Research suggests that impulsivity may have a biological basis.

Problem behaviors

Social: • Family dysfunction. • Unemployment. • Educational underachievement. • School misconduct. Personal: • Substance abuse. • Suicide attempts. • Early sexuality. • Sensation seeking. • Early parenthood. • Accident prone. • Medical Problems. • Mental disease. • Anxiety. • Eating Disorders (bulimia, anorexia). Environmental: • High-crime area. • Disorganized Area. • Racism. • Exposure to poverty.

Offense Specialization/Generalization

Some offenders are specialists, limiting their criminal activity to a cluster of crime such as thefts. Others are generalists who engage in a variety of criminal activities such as drug abuse and burglary. - Choose their crime based on opportunity and likelihood of success.

1. Authority conflict pathway. 2. Covert pathway. 3. Overt pathway.

Using data from a longitudinal study of Pittsburgh youth, Rolf Loeber has identified what 3 distinct paths to a criminal career? (Each of these paths may lead to a sustained deviant career?)

Persistence and Desistance

Views on the process of criminal career termination. - Cognition and Desistance. - Identity and Desistance.

1. Constant latent trait. 2. Evolving latent trait.

What are the 2 types of latent traits?

• Adolescence with a history of gang involvement are more likely to have been expelled from school, be binge drinkers, test positive for marijuana, have been in three or more fights in the past six months, have promiscuous partners, and test positive for sexually transmitted diseases. • Kids who gamble and take risks at an early age also take drugs and commit crimes. • People who exhibit one of these conditions typically exhibit many of the others.

What are the examples that support the existence of PBS?

• Individual traits in childhood experiences are important to understand the onset of delinquent in criminal behavior. But these alone cannot explain the continuity of crime into adulthood. • Experiences in young adulthood and beyond can redirect criminal transitions. In some cases people can be turned in a positive direction, while in others negative life experiences can be harmful and injurious. • Repeat negative experiences create a condition called cumulative disadvantage. Serious problems in adolescence undermine life chances and reduce employability and social relations. People who increase their cumulative disadvantage risk continue offending. • Positive life experiences and relationships can help a person become reattached to society and allow them to knife off from a criminal career path. • Positive life experiences such as gaining employment, getting married, or joining the military create informal social control mechanisms that limit Criminal behavior opportunities. These elements of informal social control are called "turning points in crime". • Two critical elements of informal social control/turning points are marriage and career. Adolescents who are at risk for crime can lead conventional lives if they can find good jobs, achieve successful military careers, or enter into a successful marriage. Turning points maybe serendipitous and unexpected: success may hinge on a lucky break; someone takes a chance on them; they win the lottery. • Another vital feature that helps people desist from crime is "human agency" or the purposeful execution of choice and free will. Former delinquents may choose to go straight and develop a new sense of self and an identity. They can choose to desist from crime and become family men and hard workers. Human agency seems to play a role in both choosing to commit crime and the decision to desist. • While some people persist in crime simply because they find it lucrative or perhaps it serves as an outlet for their frustrations, others choose not to participate because as human beings they find other, more conventional paths more beneficial and rewarding. Human choice cannot be left out of the equation.

What are the principles of age-graded theory?

Propensity

An inclination or natural tendency to behave in a particular way.

Changing Life Influences

People are influenced by different factors as they mature. As people mature the factors that influence their behavior change.

Problem behavior syndrome (PBS)

A cluster of antisocial behaviors that may include family dysfunction, substance abuse, smoking, precocious sexuality and early pregnancy, educational underachievement, suicide attempts, sensation seeking, and unemployment, as well as crime. Crime is one among a group of interrelated antisocial behaviors that cluster together and typically involve family dysfunction, sexual and physical abuse, substance abuse, smoking, precocious sexuality and early pregnancy, educational underachievement, suicide attempts, sensation seeking, and unemployment.

Cumulative disadvantage

A condition in which repeated negative experiences in adolescence undermine life chances and reduce employability and social relations. People who increase their cumulative disadvantage risk continued offending. Experiencing repeated and varied social problems.

Crime and Human Nature

A criminal incident occurs when an individual chooses criminal over conventional behavior after weighing the potential gains and losses of each.

Age-graded theory

A developmental theory that posits that (a) individual traits and childhood experiences are important to understand the onset of delinquent and criminal behavior; (b) experiences in young adulthood and beyond can redirect criminal trajectories or paths; (c) serious problems in adolescence undermine life chances; (d) positive life experiences and relationships can help a person knife off from a criminal career path; (e) positive life experiences such as gaining employment, getting married, or joining the military create informal social control mechanisms that limit criminal behavior opportunities; (f) former criminals may choose to desist from crime because they find more conventional paths more beneficial and rewarding. Sampson and Laub: If there are various pathways to crime and delinquency, are there trails back to conformity? Major Premise: As people mature, the factors that influence their propensity to commit crime change. In childhood, family factors are critical; in adulthood, marital and job factors are key. Strengths: Shows how crime is a developmental process that shifts in direction over the life course. Research Focus: Identify critical points in the life course that produce crime. Analyze the association between social capital and crime.

Testing Age-Graded Theory

A number of research efforts have supported the basic assumptions of age-graded theory.

Socialization differences

A number of research efforts show that the quality of peer relations either enhances or controls criminal behavior and that these influences vary over time. As children mature, peer influence continues to grow. Research shows that kids who lack self-control also have trouble maintaining relationships with law-abiding peers. They may either choose or be forced to seek out friends who are similarly limited in their ability to maintain self-control. Similarly, as they mature they may seek out romantic relationships with law-violating boyfriends or girlfriends, and these entanglements enhance the likelihood that they will get further involved in crime (girls seem more deeply influenced by their delinquent boyfriends than boys by their delinquent girlfriends). This finding contradicts the GTC, which suggests the influence of friends should be stable and unchanging and that a relationship established later in life (making deviant friends) should not influence criminal propensity. Gottfredson and Hirschi might counter that it should come as no surprise that impulsive kids, lacking in self-control, seek out peers with similar personality characteristics. Gottfredson and Hirschi propose that children either develop self-control by the end of early childhood or fail to develop it at all. Research shows, however, that some kids who are predisposed to a delinquency may find their life circumstances improved and their involvement with antisocial behavior diminished if they are exposed to positive and effective parenting that appears later in life. Parenting can influence self-control in later adolescence and kids who receive improved parenting may improve their self control much later in the life course than predicted by the GTC.

Covert pathway

A path to a criminal career that begins with minor underhanded behavior and progresses to fire starting and theft.

Age-Graded Theory Validity

A popular theory but there are several short- comings, especially concerning causal ordering.

Latent trait

A stable feature, characteristic, property, or condition, present at birth or soon after, that makes some people crime prone over the life course.

Self-control

A strong moral sense that renders a person incapable of hurting others or violating social norms.

• Non-offenders (62%). • Low-adolescent peak offenders (19%). • Very low-rate chronic offenders (11%). • High-adolescence peak offenders (5%). • High-rate chronic offenders (3%).

Alex Piquero and his associates examined data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD), a longitudinal survey of 411 South London males, most born in 1953, and found that the group could be further subdivided into what 5 classes based on their offending histories?

1. Life course view. 2. Latent trait view. 3. Trajectory view.

As research on criminal careers had evolved, what are the 3 distinct viewpoints that have taken shape?

Social schemas

Cognitive frameworks that help people quickly process and sort through information. Lessons that alter cognitive frameworks.

Common elements

Criminal careers are a passage. Involvement in crime is not constant but may increase (or decrease) in frequency, severity, and variety depending on external factors ranging from opportunity to social control.

Crime Rate Variations

Criminal propensity and criminal acts are separate concepts.

Introduction

Criminologists have struggled to understand the factors that explain the onset and continuation of a criminal career. Those who study developmental criminology attempt to provide a more global vision of a criminal career encompassing its onset, continuation, and termination.

Disruption Promotes Criminality

Disruptions in life's major transitions can be destructive and ultimately can promote criminality.

Self-Control and Crime

Explains all varieties of criminal behavior and all the social and behavioral correlates of crime.

Racial and gender differences in the crime rate are not adequately explained

Impulsivity may not be able to explain all the gender and racial variations in the crime rate; it has different cross-group effects. Although distinct gender differences in the crime rate exist, there is little evidence that males are more impulsive than females (although females and males differ in many other personality traits). Some research efforts have found gender differences in the association between self-control and crime; the theory predicts no such difference should occur. Looking at this relationship from another perspective, males who persist in crime exhibit characteristics that are different from female persisters. Women seem to be influenced by their place of residence, childhood and recent abuses, living with a criminal partner, selling drugs, stress, depression, fearfulness, their romantic relationships, their children, and whether they have suicidal thoughts. In contrast, men are more likely to persist because of their criminal peer associations, carrying weapons, alcohol abuse, and aggressive feelings. Impulsivity alone may not be able to explain why males and females persist or desist. Similarly, Gottfredson and Hirschi explain racial differences in the crime rate as a failure of child rearing practices in the African-American community. In so doing, they overlook issues of institutional racism, poverty, and relative deprivation, which have been shown to have a significant impact on crime rate differentials. African-Americans are more influenced by their perception of police bias than others, a fact overlooked by Hirschi and Gottfredson.

1. An impulsive personality. 2. A lack of self-control (120).

In their important work 'A General Theory of Crime', Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi link the propensity to commit crime to what 2 latent traits?

Constant latent trait

Inflexible, unchanging, influenced by psychological and biological traits and conditions.

Questions remaining about GTC?

Is criminal propensity invariant? Does the theory involve circular reasoning? What is the relationship to environmental factors?

General Theory of Crime and Delinquency (GTCD)

Major Premise: Five critical life domains shape criminal behavior and are shaped by criminal behavior. Strengths: Shows how crime and other aspects of social life are interactive and developmental. Research Focus: Measure the relationship between life domains and crime.

Life Course Persistent/Adolescent Limited

Major Premise: People begin their criminal activities at different points in their lives. Strengths: Explains why most adolescent misbehavior is limited to youthful misadventures. Research Focus: Measuring the starting and stopping points of criminal activity.

Gender and Desistance

Males - early onset of antisocial behaviors leads to later problems at work and involvement in substance abuse; early aggression in boys is exhibited as continued physical violence and delinquent during adolescence. Females - early antisocial behavior leads to relationship problems, depression, a tendency to commit suicide, and poor health in adulthood.

Public Policy Implications of Developmental Theory

Multi-systemic treatment efforts for at-risk youth. Multidimensional strategies aimed at children in preschool and early elementary school.

Personality differences

Not all people have similar personalities and not all criminals are impulsive. The personality is too complex to suggest that only a single element can account for antisocial behavior. There is too much variety in personality traits, ranging from psychopathy to decision-making style to say that a single element is responsible for all crimes. It is also possible that other elements of the personality—including but not limited to temperament, risk seeking, and self-centeredness—are more potent predictors of antisocial behavior than impulsivity. While Gottfredson and Hirschi assume that criminals are impatient or "present-oriented," there's also evidence that some choose to commit crime for future rewards. When Steven Levitt and Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh interviewed gang boys, they found that many young gang boys are willing to wait years to "rise through the ranks" before becoming gang leaders and earning high wages. Their stay in the gang is fueled by the promise of future compensation, a fact that contradicts Gottfredson and Hirschi's vision of an impulsive criminal who lives for today without worrying about tomorrow.

Early, Late and, Non-Starters

Not all persistent offenders begin at an early age: there are different paths. Those who engage in repeated and sustained illegal acts in early adolescence are most likely to continue into their adulthood. "Late bloomers" who stay out of trouble until late in adolescence are actually the mostly likely to get involved in serious adult offending.

• People change and so does their level of self-control. • Environmental patterns are not adequately explained. • Racial and gender differences in the crime rate are not adequately explained. • Socialization differences. • Personality differences.

Numerous studies have attempted to explain or address environmental and individual level differences in the crime rate to determine whether the GTC can explain what they occur. Give examples.

Adolescent-limited offender

Offender who follows the most common criminal trajectory, in which antisocial behavior peaks in adolescence and then diminishes. "Typical teenagers;" rebellious teenage behavior.

Life course persister

One of the small group of offenders whose criminal career continues well into adulthood. Small group; begin offending at a very early age and continue to offend well into adulthood. Offend more frequently and engage in a greater variety.

Multifactor/integrated theory

Origin: About 1930. Founders: Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck; Hans Eysenck. Most Important Works: Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck: 'Five Hundred Delinquent Women' (1934); 'Later Criminal Careers' (1937); 'Criminal Careers in Retrospect' (1943); 'Juvenile Delinquents Grown Up' (1940); 'Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency' (1950); Hans Eysenck 'Crime and Personality' Core Ideas: Crime is a function of environmental, socialization, physical, and psychological factors. Each makes an independent contribution to shaping and directing behavior patterns. Deficits in these areas of human development increase the risk of crime. People at risk for crime can resist antisocial behaviors if these traits and conditions can be strengthened. Modern Outgrowths: Developmental theory, life course theory, propensity/latent trait theory, trajectory theory.

Overt pathway

Pathway to a criminal career that begins with minor aggression, leads to physical fighting, and eventually escalates to violent crime.

Control Balance Theory

Principal Theorist: Charles Tittle. Latent Trait: Control/balance. Major Premise: The concept of control has two distinct elements: the amount of control one is subject to by others and the amount of control one can exercise over others. Conformity results when these two elements are in balance; control imbalances produce deviant and criminal behaviors. Those people who sense a deficit of control turn to three types of behavior to restore balance: • "Predation" involves direct forms of physical violence, such as robbery, sexual assault, or other forms of assault. • "Defiance" challenges control mechanisms but stop short of physical harm: for example, vandalism, curfew violations, and unconventional sex. • "Submission" involves passive obedience to the demands of others, such as submitting to physical or sexual abuse without response. An excess of control can result in crimes of (a) "exploitation", which involves using others to commit crimes, such as contract killers or drug runners, (b) "plunder", which involves using power without regard for others, such as committing a hate crime or polluting the environment, or (c) "decadence", which involves spur of the moment, irrational acts such as child molesting. Major Premise: A person's "control ratio" influences their behavior. Strengths: Explains how the ability to control one's environment is a master trait. Research Focus: Measuring control balance and imbalance. (Some Important Latent Trait Theories) Sources: David P. Farrington, "Developmental and Life-Course Criminology: Key Theoretical and Empirical Issues," Sutherland Award address presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Chicago, November 2002, revised March 2003; Charles Tittle, 'Control Balance: Toward a General Theory of Deviance' (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995); Mark Colvin, 'Crime and Coercion: An Integrated Theory of Chronic Criminality' (New York: Palgrave Press, 2000).

Integrated Cognitive Antisocial Potential (ICAP) Theory

Principal Theorist: David Farrington. Latent Trait: Antisocial potential. Major Premise: People maintain a range of "antisocial potential" (AP), the potential to commit antisocial acts. AP can be viewed as both a long- and short -term phenomenon. Those with high levels of long-term AP are at risk for offending over the life course; those with low AP levels live more conventional lives. Though AP levels are fairly consistent over time, they peak in the teenage years because of the effects of maturational factors—such as an increase in peer influence and decrease and family influence—that directly affect crime rates. Long-term AP can be reduced by life-changing events such as marriage. There is also short-term AP when immediate life events may increase a personal antisocial potential so that, in the immediate moment, people may advance their location on the AP continuum. For example, a person with a relatively low long-term AP may suffer a temporary amplification if they are bored, angry, drunk, or frustrated. According to the ICAP theory, the commission of offenses and other types of antisocial acts depends on the interaction between the individual (with their immediate level of AP) and the social environment (especially criminal opportunities and victims.). Major Premise: People with antisocial potential (AP) are at risk to commit antisocial acts. AP can be viewed as both a long- and short-term phenomenon. Strengths: Identifies the different types of criminal propensities and shows how they may influence behavior in both the short and long-term. Research Focus: Identify the components of long- and short-term AP. (Some Important Latent Trait Theories) Sources: David P. Farrington, "Developmental and Life-Course Criminology: Key Theoretical and Empirical Issues," Sutherland Award address presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Chicago, November 2002, revised March 2003; Charles Tittle, 'Control Balance: Toward a General Theory of Deviance' (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995); Mark Colvin, 'Crime and Coercion: An Integrated Theory of Chronic Criminality' (New York: Palgrave Press, 2000).

Differential Coercion Theory

Principal Theorist: Mark Colvin. Latent Trait: Perceptions of coercion. Major Premise: Perceptions of coercion begin early in life when children experience punitive forms of discipline—both physical attacks and psychological coercion, including negative commands, critical remarks, teasing, humiliation, whining, yelling, and threats. Through these destructive family interchanges, coercion becomes ingrained and guides reactions to adverse situations that arise in both family and non-family settings. There are two sources of coercion: interpersonal and impersonal. Interpersonal coercion is direct, involving the use or threat of force and intimidation from parents, peers, and significant others. Impersonal coercion involves pressures beyond individual control, such as economic and social pressure caused by unemployment, poverty, or competition among businesses or other groups. High levels of coercion produce criminality, especially when the episodes of coercive behavior are inconsistent and random, because this teaches people that they cannot control their lives. Chronic offenders grew up in homes where parents used erratic control and applied it in an inconsistent fashion. Major Premise: Individuals exposed to coercive environments develop social-psychological deficits that enhance their probability of engaging in criminal behavior. Strengths: Explains why a feeling of coercion is a master trait that determines behavior. Research Focus: Measuring the sources of coercion. (Some Important Latent Trait Theories) Sources: David P. Farrington, "Developmental and Life-Course Criminology: Key Theoretical and Empirical Issues," Sutherland Award address presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Chicago, November 2002, revised March 2003; Charles Tittle, 'Control Balance: Toward a General Theory of Deviance' (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995); Mark Colvin, 'Crime and Coercion: An Integrated Theory of Chronic Criminality' (New York: Palgrave Press, 2000).

Social Development Model (SDM)

Principle Theorists: J. David Hawkins, Richard Catalano. Major Premise: Community-level risk factors make some people susceptible to antisocial behaviors. Pre-existing risk factors are either reinforced or neutralized by socialization. To control the risk of antisocial behavior, a child must maintain prosocial bonds. Over the life course, involvement in prosocial or antisocial behavior determines the quality of attachments. Commitment and attachment to conventional institutions, activities, and beliefs insulate youths from the criminogenetic influences in their environment. The prosocial path inhibits deviance by strengthening bonds to prosocial others and activities. Without the proper level of bonding, adolescents can succumb to the influence of deviant others. (Principle Life Course Theories) Source: Terence Thornberry, "Toward an Interactional Theory of Delinquency," 'Criminology' 25 (1987): 863-891; Richard Catalano and J. David Hawkins, "The Social Development Model: A Theory if Antisocial Behavior," in 'Delinquency and Crime: Current Theories,' ed. J. David Hawkins (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 149-197.

Interactional theory

Principle Theorists: Terence Thornberry and Marvin Krohn, Alan Lizotte, Margaret Farnworth. Major Premise: Criminals go through their lifestyle changes during their offending career. Crime influences lifestyle, and changing lifestyle influences crime. Strengths: Combines sociological and psychological theories. Research Focus: Identify crime-producing interpersonal interactions and their reciprocal effects. Major Premise: The onset of crime can be traced to a deterioration of the social bond during adolescence, marked by weakened attachment to parents, commitment to school, and belief in conventional values. The cause of crime and delinquency is bidirectional: weak bonds lead kids to develop friendships with deviant peers and get involved in delinquency. Frequent delinquency involvement further weakens bonds and makes it difficult to reestablish conventional ones. Delinquency-promoting factors tend to reinforce one another and sustain a chronic criminal career. Kids go through stressful life events such as family financial crisis are more likely to later get involved in antisocial behaviors and vice versa. Criminality is a developmental process that takes on different meaning and form as a person matures. During early adolescence, attachment to the family is critical; by mid-adolescence, the influence of the family is replaced by friends, school, and youth culture; by adulthood, a person's behavioral choices are shaped by their place in conventional society and their own nuclear family. Although crime is influenced by the social forces, it also influences these processes and associations. Therefore, crime and social processes are interactional. (Principle Life Course Theories) Source: Terence Thornberry, "Toward an Interactional Theory of Delinquency," 'Criminology' 25 (1987): 863-891; Richard Catalano and J. David Hawkins, "The Social Development Model: A Theory if Antisocial Behavior," in 'Delinquency and Crime: Current Theories,' ed. J. David Hawkins (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 149-197.

Environmental patterns are not adequately explained

The GTC fails to address ecological patterns in the crime rate. If crime rates are higher in Los Angeles then in Albany, New York, can it be assumed that residents of Los Angeles are more impulsive than the residents of Albany? There is little evidence of regional differences in impulsivity or self-control. Gottfredson and Hirschi might counter that crime rate differences may reflect criminal opportunity: One area may have more effective law-enforcement, more draconian laws, and higher levels of guardianship. If crime rates are lower in Albany it is because there are fewer opportunities to commit crime. Environments may interact with personality to shape behaviors, a condition not foreseen by the GTC. Some research indicates that social factors do in fact mediate the influence of self-control on crime and that such factors as community solidarity, morality and general levels of self-control moderate the effects of individual levels of low self-control. Take what criminologist Gregory Zimmerman found when he examined how environment and personality interact. In high-crime neighborhoods, being impulsive and lacking self-control are not associated with criminal behavior. In contrast, in low-crime, safer areas, impulsive kids are the ones most likely to commit criminal acts. How can this environmental effect be explained? In disadvantaged neighborhoods, where crime is omnipresent, maintaining low self-control means relatively little. In contrast, in safer, low-crime areas, most kids conform and it's only the most impulsive ones, the few bad apples, who risk engaging in criminal acts. In stable neighborhoods, where legitimate opportunity abounds, only the most reckless kids are foolish enough to commit crime. In sum, environment may influence criminal decision-making, an observation that contradicts the GTC.

People change and so does their level of self-control

The General Theory of Crime assumes that criminal propensity does not change; opportunities change. This is a critical issue because assumes that the human personality is stable from childhood into adult hood. However, social scientists recognize that behavior-shaping factors that are dominant in early adolescence, such as peer groups, may fade in adulthood and be replaced by others, such as the nuclear family. Personality also undergoes change and so does its impact on antisocial behavior. It is not surprising that research efforts show that the stability in self-control predicted by Gottfredson and Hirschi may be an illusion: some research efforts find stability in social control over the life course, while others find significant change and fluctuations. As people mature, the the focus of their lives likewise changes and they may be better able to control their impulsive behavior. As Callie Burt and her associates recently found, adolescence is a period of dramatic biological, behavioral, and social changes; a young person's physical and neurological makeup is undergoing remodeling and restructuring. Environmental influences operate in concert with neurobiological changes to create a period of heightened change. During this period levels of impulsivity also change, a result that is not protected by the GTC.

Foundations of Developemental theory

The Glueck research was a cornerstone of life course theories; integrating biological, psychological, and social factors relating to persistent offending. Criminal Career Research: Developmental criminologists focus on the factors that prompts one persons to engage in persistent criminal activity leading to a criminal career.

• Residents in low-income, high-crime communities places stressors and influences on children and families that increase their risk levels. In these areas, families characterized by marital conflict and instability make consistent and effective parenting difficult to achieve. Particularly with children who are impulsive and a difficult temperament. • Children of high-risk families usually enter the education process poorly prepared for its social, emotional, and cognitive demands. Their parents often are unprepared to relate effectively with school staff, and a poor home-school bond often aggravates the child adjustment problems. They may be grouped with other children who are similarly unprepared. This peer group may be negatively influenced by disruptive classroom context and punitive teachers. • Over time, aggressive and disruptive children are rejected by families and peers and tend to receive less support from teachers. All of these processes increase the risk of antisocial behaviors, in a process that begins in elementary school and lasts throughout adolescence. During this period, peer influences, academic difficulties, and dysfunctional personal identity development can contribute to serious conduct problems and related risky behaviors.

The intervention program Fast Track, is guided by a developmental approach that suggests that antisocial behavior is the product of the interaction of multiple social and psychological influences. Give examples.

Authority conflict pathway

The path to a criminal career that begins with early stubborn behavior and defiance of parents.

State dependence

The propensity to commit crime profoundly and permanently disrupts normal socialization. Early rule breaking strengthens criminal motivation and increases the probability of future rule breaking. Suggests that people change and develop as they mature; life events have a significant influence on future behavior.

What causes impulsivity?

The root cause is traced to inadequate childrearing practices that begin soon after birth and can influence neural development.

Early onset

The seeds of a criminal career are planted early in life. - Early onset of deviance strongly predicts later and more serious criminality. The earlier the onset of crime, the longer its duration.

Evaluating Developmental Theories

The theories in this chapter share some common ground. The factors that affect a criminal career may include structural factors, socialization factors, biological factors, psychological factors, and opportunity factors.

Criminogenic Knowledge Structure (CKS)

The view that negative life events are connected and produce a hostile view of people and relationships, preference for immediate rewards, and a cynical view of conventional norms. Interconnected negative schemas that compel individuals to respond to crime in response to stressful situations.

Population heterogeneity

The view that the propensity of an individual to participate in antisocial behavior is a relatively stable trait, unchanging over their life course. Assumes that the propensity of an individual to participate in antisocial and/or criminal behaviors is a relatively stable trait.

Life course theories

Theoretical views studying changes in criminal offending patterns over a person's entire life. Social and personal factors that shape human behavior change over the life course, influenced by human interactions. Criminality is a dynamic process, influenced by a multitude of individual characteristics, traits, and social experiences. Major Premise: As people go through the life course, social and personal traits undergo change and influence behavior. Strengths: Explains why some at-risk children desist from crime. Research Focus: Identify critical moments in a person's life course that produce crime.

Propensity/Latent trait theories

Theoretical views that criminal behavior is controlled by a master trait, present at birth or soon after, that remains stable and unchanging throughout a person's lifetime. As people develop, a master trait influences their behavior, guiding and controlling behavior choices. Human development is controlled by a "master trait" present at birth or soon after. People have a personal attribute or characteristic (trait) that controls their inclination or propensity to commit crimes. Trait is present at birth or established early in life and can remain stable over time Major Premise; A master trait that controls human development. Strengths: Explains the continuity of crime and chronic offending. Research Focus: Identify master trait that produces crime.

• Empirical Research now shows that, as predicted by Sampson and Laub, people change over the life course that the factors that predict crime in adolescence, such as a weak bond to parents, may have less of an impact on adult crime when other factors, such as marriage and family, take on greater importance. • Criminality appears to be dynamic and is affected both by the erosion of informal social control and by interaction with antisocial influences. Accumulating deviant peers help sustain criminality: the more deviant friends one accumulates over time, the more likely one is to maintain a criminal career. • As levels of cumulative disadvantage increase, crime resisting elements of social life are impaired. Adolescents who are convicted of crime at an early age are more likely to develop antisocial attitudes later in life. They later develop low educational achievement, declining occupational status, and unstable employment records. People who get involved with the justice system as adolescence may find that their career paths are blocked well into adulthood. The relationship is reciprocal: men who are unemployed or under employed report higher criminal participation rates then employed men. • Criminal career trajectory can be reversed if life conditions improve and they gain social capital. First, communities that have social capital opportunities such as group recreation centers and job prospects have lower rates of crime and victimization than areas that lack the ability to improve life chances. Second, kids whose life circumstances improve because their parents escape poverty and move to these more attractive environments find that they can knife off from criminal trajectories. Relocating may place them in better educational environments where they can have a positive high school experience, facilitated by occupationally oriented coursework, small class size, and positive peer climates; having a positive school experience has been shown to be one of the most important factors that helps people knife off from crime. • Gaining social capital helps with behavior reversal. As predicted by Laub and Sampson, those who enter the military, serve overseas, and receive veterans' benefits enhance their occupational status (social capital) while reducing criminal involvement. Similarly, people who are fortunate enough to obtain high-quality jobs are likely to reduce their criminal activities even if they had a prior history of offending.

There have been a number of research efforts that support the basic assumptions of age-graded theory. Give examples.

Chronic Offending

There may be different categories of chronic offenders, for example: very low-rate and high-rate chronic offenders.