CHAPTER 5:
DEVELOPMENTAL VIEWS OF DELINQUENCY
- Developmental theories focuses on the onset, continuity, and termination of a delinquent career
- Three independent yet interrelated views:
Life-course theory:
- Focuses on changes in criminality over the life course
Latent trait theory:
- A stable feature, characteristic, property, or condition that makes some people delinquency-prone over the life course
Trajectory theory:
- There are multiple independent paths to a delinquent career, and there are different types and classes of offenders
DEVELOPMENT THEORIES
LO1.
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- According to life course view:
- As young as toddlers people begin relationships and behaviors that will determine their entire life course
- Disruptions in life’s major transitions can be destructive and ultimately promote criminality
THE LIFE COURSE VIEW
LO2.
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- A positive life experience may help some kids desist from delinquency for a while; whereas a negative one may cause them to resume their activities
- Delinquent careers are also said to be interactional because people are influenced by the behavior of those around them
- Life course theories also recognize that as people mature, the factors that influence their behavior change
THE DEVELOPMENTAL PROCESS
LO2.
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- One of the cornerstones of recent course theories has been renewed interest in the research efforts of Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck (at Harvard University in the 1930s)
- The Gluecks research focused on early onset of delinquency as a harbinger of a delinquent career
- The most important factor was family relationships
- Others include: physical and mental factors such as intelligence, mental disease, physique
THE GLUECK RESEARCH
LO2.
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- A number of key concepts:
Age of Onset
Problem Behavior Syndrome
Continuity of Crime and Delinquency
LIFE COURSE CONCEPTS
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- Early onset of deviance strongly predicts more frequent, varied, and sustained criminality later in life
- Research shows that poor parental discipline and monitoring is a key factor in the early onset of criminality
- The earlier the onset, the more likely an adolescent will engage in serious delinquency and for a longer period of time
AGE OF ONSET
LO2.
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- Life course view
- Delinquency is but one of many social problems faced by at-risk youth, including family dysfunction, substance abuse, smoking, precocious sexuality/early pregnancy, education underachievement, suicide attempt…
- All varieties of delinquent behavior, including violence, theft, and drug offenses may be part of a generalized PBS
PROBLEM BEHAVIOR SYNDROME
LO2.
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- The best predictor of future criminality is past criminality
- Research shows that kids who become persist offenders engage in more aggressive acts, and are continually involved in theft offenses and violent offenses
- As they enter adulthood they report less emotional support, low job satisfaction, distant peer relationships, and more psychiatric problems than those who desist from crime as youths
CONTINUITY OF CRIME AND DELINQUENCY
LO2.
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- Social theorists have formulated a number of systematic theories that account for onset, continuance, and desistance from delinquency
- One of the most prominent of these is age graded theory
- Age-graded theory was first articulated in an important 1993 work, “Crime in the Making,” by Sampson and Laub
AGE GRADED THEORY
LO3.
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FIGURE 5.1 Sampson and Laub’s Age-Graded Theory
- Sampson and Laub identified “turning points” in life
- Two critical “turning points”
Career
Marriage
- Adolescents who are at risk for delinquency can live conventional lives if they can find good jobs or achieve successful careers
- People who cannot sustain secure marital relations are less likely to desist from delinquency
TURNING POINTS IN LIFE COURSE
LO3.
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VA Tech Massacre – Seung-Hui Cho’s Story Current Example
Seung-Hui Cho was an undergraduate student at Virginia Tech who killed 32 people and wounded 25 others on April 16, 2007 in a shooting rampage. Cho later committed suicide. Born in South Korea, Cho arrived in the United States in 1992 at the age of 8, with his family. The family first lived in Maryland then moved to the Washington metropolitan area. He became a US permanent resident. In middle school, he was diagnosed with a severe anxiety disorder as well as major depressive disorder. After this diagnosis he began receiving treatment and continued to receive therapy and special education support until his junior year of high school. During Cho's last two years at Virginia Tech, teachers and classmates grow concerned over several instances of his abnormal behavior and his writings, which often included graphic violence.
From Cho’s story above, can you identify some of the “turning points” in his life?
How could these “turning points” have changed his life, positively or negatively?
Was there anything that could been done to change the outcome of his life?
LO3.
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- A cornerstone of age graded theory is the influence of social capital on behavior
- Social capital:
- Positive relations with individuals and institutions that support conventional behavior and inhibit deviant behavior
- Losing or wasting social capital increases the likelihood of getting involved in delinquency
DEVELOPING SOCIAL CAPITAL
LO3.
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- Several indicators support the validity of age graded theory
- Research has shown that children who grow up in two parent homes are more likely to have happier marriages
- Youths who accumulate social capital in childhood are most likely to maintain steady work as adults
TESTING AGE-GRADED THEORY
LO3.
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- Age-graded theory places a lot of emphasis on the stability brought about by romantic relationships
- Kids headed toward a life of crime can veer off that path if they meet the right mate
- Love is a primary conduit of informal social control
- Only meaningful relationships seem to help prevent future crime: love, not sex
LOVE AND DELINQUENCY
LO3.
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Love and Delinquency – Current Example
According to a study published in the American Sociological Review (2009), teenagers in love are less likely to commit crime. Young girls and boys who have romantic relationships or are in love usually don’t get mixed up in crime and pernicious habits. At the same time, teens that have casual sex without being in love are more likely to get into trouble. According to the study, teenagers who have romantic sexual relationships and teenagers who abstain from sex are very unlikely to be involved in substance abused or other criminal behaviors. However, teens who have casual sex without romantic feelings have a much greater chance of becoming criminals.
Based on the discussion in your text, can you explain the correlation between “love” and “delinquency”?
Why is being “in love” a “social capital,” and how does it correlate in explaining delinquent behavior?
LO3.
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- Suspected latent traits include:
- Defective intelligence
- Impulsive personality
- Genetic abnormalities
- Physical-chemical functioning of the brain
- Environmental factors such as drug, chemicals, and injuries
- The propensity or inclination to commit delinquency is stable, but the opportunity fluctuates over time
- People age out of delinquency because, as they mature, there are simply fewer opportunities to commit such acts
- Latent trait/propensity theory integrates trait theories with rational choice theories
THE LATENT TRAIT VIEW
LO4.
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Murder Rate in the Neighborhood and IQ – Current Example
After analyzing more than 6,000 murders in the Chicago area and two surveys of children and families in Chicago neighborhoods, Professor Sharkey at New York University concluded that a murder in the neighborhood can significantly knock down a child's score on an IQ test, even if the child did not directly witness the killing or know the victim (2010). According to Sharkey, the results can also explain about half the achievement gap between blacks and whites on such tests.
Based on the discussion in your text, can you explain the correlation found in Professor Sharkey’s study?
What major impacts does IQ have on our society as a whole?
LO4.
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- Michael & Travis Hirschi
- Integrated control with biosocial, psychological, routine activities, and rational choice theories
- The Act and the Offender:
- Delinquent acts are illegal events or deeds that people engage in when they perceive them to be advantageous
- Delinquency is rational and predicable
- Delinquents are predisposed to commit crimes
GENERAL THEORY OF CRIME
LO4.
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- What makes people delinquency prone?
- Low self-control – immediate gratification
- People with limited self-control tend to be impulsive
- What causes low self-control?
- Inadequate childrearing practices
- Parents who are unwilling or unable to monitor a child’s behavior, to recognize deviant behavior, and to punish bad behavior will usually produce children who lack self-control
GENERAL THEORY OF CRIME
LO4.
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FIGURE 5.2 THE GENERAL THEORY OF CRIME
- One approach involves identifying indicators of impulsiveness and self-control
- Impulsivity predicts the likelihood that a person will engage in criminal behavior
- Another study has found that victims have lower self-control than non-victims
- Criticism:
- Circular reasoning
- Personality disorder
- Racial and gender differences
- People change and so does their level of self-control
TESTING THE GENERAL THEORY OF CRIME
LO4.
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- There is more than one path to crime and more than one class of offender; there are different trajectories in a delinquent career
- Violent delinquents
- Chronic offending trajectories
- Pathways to Delinquency
- The authority conflict pathway
- The covert pathway
- The overt pathway
TRAJECTORY THEORY
LO5.
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- According to Moffitt, there are two paths:
Adolescent-limited offenders:
- Who get into minor scrapes as youth but whose misbehavior ends when they enter adulthood
Life-course persistent offenders:
- Delinquents who begin their offending career at a very early age and continue to offend well into adulthood
- “Abstainers”:
- Social introverts whose unpopularity shields them from group pressure to commit delinquent acts
ADOLESCENT LIMITED AND LIFE COURSE PERSISTENT OFFENDERS
LO5.
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- The developmental view is that a delinquent career must be understood as a path
- People travel, and events and life circumstances influence the path
- Life course theories
- Emphasize the influence of changing interpersonal and structural factors
- Latent trait theories
- Assume that an individual’s behavior is linked less to personal change than to changes in the surrounding world
- The perspectives differ in their view of human development
- Note these positions are NOT mutually exclusive
EVALUATING THE DEVELOPMENTAL VIEW
LO1.
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- There have been a number of policy-based initiatives based on premises of developmental theory
- Some programs aim to prevent delinquency in the long run by helping parents improve their parenting skills
- This is another form of family support that has shown some success in preventing juvenile delinquency
- Some provide a mixture of services
DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY AND DELINQUENCY PREVENTION
LO1.
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The foundation of Development Theory can be traced to the pioneering work of Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck
Life Course theory suggests that delinquent behavior is a dynamic process, influenced by individual characteristics and social experiences
Latent trait theory suggests that a stable feature, characteristics, property or condition makes some delinquency prone for life
Trajectory theorists recognize that career delinquents may travel more than a single road
SUMMARY
LO1-LO5.
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