Chapter 6

Chapter

By Nelia Simeon, Danny Pichardo, Zarria McGugan, Pedro Rodriguez

Developmental Theories of Delinquency: Life-Course, Propensity, and Trajectory

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6-2B

6-1

6-2

6-2A

6-4

6-2C

6-3

6-3a

6-4c

6-4a

6-5

6-4b

6-5a

6-5b

6-5c

6-6

6-8

6-7

6-1

The Creation

The foundation of developmental theory can be traced to the pioneering work of Sheldon Glueck and Eleanor Glueck. In a series of longitudinal research studies, they followed the careers of known delinquents to determine the social, biological, and psychological characteristics that predicted persistent offending. The Gluecks made extensive use of interviews and records in their elaborate comparisons of delinquents and nondelinquents.

life course theory

6-2

Implications

What it is

Kids who get in trouble early may find it difficult to shake the criminal way of life as they mature. Those who join gangs are more likely to get involved in antisocial behavior after they leave the gang than before they joined; gang membership creates long-term disruptions.

The life-course theory asserts that delinquency is a continual process that changes over time, and the same causes that lead to antisocial behavior at one stage of life may not apply at another stage.

Negative Life Events

6-2A

Regardless of the cause of their early externalizing behaviors, as children mature they go through cognitive changes and their thinking patterns change. While some may persist in their illegal conduct, personal maturity may help others reduce the attraction of antisocial activities. Teens who want to drink, take drugs, and get in trouble may go through a positive transformation in their thinking in early adulthood, helping them to desist from crime.

Life-course concepts

6-2B

Age of onset

Offense Specialization/generalization

Problem Behavior Syndrome

The majority of life-course theories make the assumption that early deviance strongly predicts later and more serious delinquency and that early deviance cultivates the seeds of a delinquent career. The most serious delinquent children start acting out at a very young age (in preschool), and the earlier delinquency starts, the more frequent, varied, and sustained the delinquent career will be.

Those who suffer from PBS are prone to more personal difficulties than the general population. They find themselves with a range of personal dilemmas, from drug abuse to being accident prone, to requiring more health care and hospitalization, to becoming teenage parents, to having mental health problems.

Persistence and Desistance

6-2C

Children who experience conduct issues as adolescents are more likely to become criminals as adults. Children who experience conduct issues as young people are typically still antisocial in their early teens. The reason delinquent behavior continues is that those who break the law and the rules often lack the social skills needed to find employment or form the kinds of relationships that would enable them to stop. Because of this, antisocial behavior may be contagious: children at risk for delinquency spread their infectious traits to those around them, resulting in an expanding network of friends and acquaintances who encourage bad behavior.

Theories of delinquent life course

6-3

A number of systematic theories have been formulated that account for onset, continuance, and desistance from crime. They typically interconnect personal factors such as personality and intelligence, social factors such as income and neighborhood, socialization factors such as marriage and military service, cognitive factors such as information processing and attention/perception, and situational factors such as delinquent opportunity, effective guardianship, and apprehension risk.

Social Development Model

6-3

Major Premise Community-level risk factors make some people susceptible to antisocial behaviors. Preexisting risk factors are either reinforced or neutralized by socialization. To control the risk of antisocial behavior, a child must maintain prosocial bonds.

Richard Catalano

J. David Hawkins

Interactional Theory

6-3

Terence Thornberry

Marvin Krohn

Alan Lizzotte

Margaret Farnworth

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 delinquency is bidirectional: Weak bonds lead kids to develop friendships with deviant peers and get involved in delinquency.

Social Schematic Theory (SST)

6-3

Callie Burt

Ronald Simons

Age-graded theory

6-3A

In their pioneering research, Laub and Sampson reanalyzed the data originally collected by the Gluecks and found that while individual traits and childhood experiences are important in understanding the onset of delinquent and criminal behavior, they alone are not able to explain the continuity of crime from delinquency to adult criminality.

Propensity theories

6-4

The idea of latent traits was put forth by David Rowe, D. Wayne Osgood, and W. Alan Nicewander to explain the progression of delinquency throughout the life cycle. Their model makes the assumption that a significant portion of the population possesses a personal trait or quality that influences their propensity to commit crimes. This attitude may be inherited or formed early in life, and it then holds steady throughout the course of a person's life. Genetic abnormalities, the physical-chemical functioning of the brain, and environmental influences on brain function, such as drugs, chemicals, and injuries, are among the suspected latent traits, along with low intelligence, a damaged or impulsive personality, and genetic abnormalities.

State Dependence

6-4A

State dependence is The propensity to commit crime profoundly and permanently disrupts normal socialization over the life course.

Propensity and opprotunity

6-4B

Teenagers have more opportunity to commit delinquency than adults, so at every level of intelligence, adolescent delinquency rates will be higher. As they mature, however, teens with both high and low IQs will commit less delinquency because their adult responsibilities provide them with fewer delinquent opportunities.

Although the propensity to commit crime is constant, the opportunity to engage in delinquency varies throughout time. Individuals grow out of criminality as they get older. There are simply fewer opportunities to commit crimes and more inducements to remain "straight" as they mature and develop. They may marry, have children, and work.

The most prominent propensity theory today is Gottfredson and Hirschi’s General Theory of Crime (GTC).

General Theory of Crime

6-4C

According to the General Theory of Crime, impulsive people who lack self-control are more likely to respond with violence to slight provocations.

Trajectory Theory

6-5

• There is more than one path to a delinquent career
• There are different types of offenders and offending patterns.
• ​Some kids start their offending careers while they are quite young, another group begins when they are older, while others are able to avoid any form of antisocial activities.

Late Bloomers and Nonstarters

6-5A

The term is used metaphorically to describe a child or teenager who develops slower than othes in their age group, but eventually catches up. In some cases it overtakes their peers or an adult whose talent or genius in a particular field only apperas late in life than normal. In som cases only in old age.

Not all persistent offenders begin at an early age. Some are precocious, beginning their delinquent careers early and persisting into adulthood

Pathway to delinquency

6-5B

• The authority conflict pathway begins at early age with an obstinate behavior. This may also lead to dofiance and then to authority avoidance.

• Covert Pathways is a delinquent's career that begins with minor behavior that lead to property damage, which later on it escalates even more leading to serious form of theft and fraud.

• Overt pathways is to a criminals career that begins with minor agression, which leads to physical fighting, and eventually later it escalates to violent delinquency.

Adolecent- limited and life-course persistent offenders

6-5C

Adolevent-Limited Offenders are kids who start tdoing terrible things but thier behavior tend to change as they become adults.

Life course persisters are individuals who become delinquents and start their offending career at a very inmature age and continue as they get older

Evaluating Developmental Theories

6-6

Life-course theories emphasize the influence of changing interpersonal and structural factors (i.e., people change along with the world they live in). Propensity theories place more emphasis on the fact that behavior is linked less to personal change and more to changes in the surrounding world. Trajectory theories combine both perspectives and suggest that while some people are guided by a master trait, there may be more than one trait that influences delinquent behavior and more than one path that delinquents may take.

Public Policy Implications of Developmental Theory

6-7

Developmental theory has served as the basis for a number of delinquency control and prevention efforts. These typically feature multisystemic treatment efforts designed to provide at-risk kids with personal, social, educational, and family services.

What is Across Ages?

Summary

6-8

Q3 Describe the principles of the life-course approach to developmental theory

Q2 Trace the history of and influences on developmental theory

Q1 Compare and contrast the three forms of developmental theory

Q4 Explain the concept of problem behavior syndrome

Q5 Articulate the principles of Sampson and Laub’s age-graded life-course theory

Q6 Define the concept of a latent trait

Q7 Outline the principles and assumptions of the General Theory of Crime

Q8 Discuss both the strengths and weaknesses of the GTC

Q9 Identify the different trajectories delinquency takes

Q10 Distinguish between adolescent-limited and life-course persistent offenders

THANK YOU!

GRACIAS