Chapter 9 Developmental Theories – Flashcards

life course theories Theoretical views studying changes in criminal offending patterns over a person's entire life. 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.

authority conflict pathway The path to a criminal career that begins with early stubborn behavior and defiance of parents. covert pathway A path to a criminal career that begins with minor underhanded behavior and progresses to fire starting and theft. overt pathway Pathway to a criminal career that begins with minor aggression, leads to physical fighting, and eventually escalates to violent crime.

Social scientists recognize that people build social capital—positive relations with individuals and institutions that are life sustaining. Laub and Sampson view the development of social capital as essential for desistance. In the same manner that building financial capital improves the chances for personal success, building social capital supports conventional behavior and inhibits deviant behavior. A successful marriage creates social capital when it improves a person's stature, creates feelings of self-worth, and encourages people to trust the individual. Gottfredson and Hirschi attribute the tendency to commit crimes to a person's level ofself-control. People with limited self-control tend to be impulsive; they are insensitive to other people's feelings, physical (rather than mental), risk takers, shortsighted, and nonverbal.

Gottfredson and Hirschi attribute the tendency to commit crimes to a person's level of self-control. People with limited self-control tend to be impulsive; they are insensitive to other people's feelings, physical (rather than mental), risk takers, shortsighted, and nonverbal. Others stay out of trouble in early adolescence and do not violate the law until later in early adulthood. Some offenders may peak their criminal activity during adolescence, whereas others persist into adulthood. Some people maximize their offending rates at a relatively early age and then reduce their antisocial activity; others persist into their 20s. Some are high-rate offenders, whereas others offend at relatively low rates.

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

Is a third developmental approach that combines elements of propensity and life course theory. The basic premise is that there is more than one path to crime and more than one class of offender; there are different trajectories in a criminal career. Because all people are different, no single model of criminality can hope to describe every person's journey through life. Some people are social and have a large peer group, while others are loners who make decisions on their own.

Family Disfunction, Toxic Agents, Low Reasoning Ability; Small Populations, most are typically youth, no one is there to support them One of the small group of offenders whose criminal career continues well into adulthood.

Typically youth go through life, not persistent offenders(Age out at 18) Offender who follows the most common criminal trajectory, in which antisocial behavior peaks in adolescence and then diminishes.

General Theory: In their important work A General Theory of Crime, Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi link the propensity to commit crime to two latent traits: an impulsive personality and a lack of self-control.

Life course theorists are particularly interested in why one person persists in crime and develops a criminal career, while another is able to reduce his or her criminal involvement and eventually desist. How can at-risk kids who have engaged in crime become law-abiding adults? Is desistance a biological phenomenon (i.e., the aging process takes its toll) or an experiential one (i.e., as people mature they take on adult responsibilities that pull them away from law-violating peers)? Reason is life experiences shape the direction and flow of behavior choices and that factors that predict crime at one point in the life course may not be the ones that foretell criminality. As they mature, former delinquents are able to desist if they enter adult worlds of work and marriage and relocate to a more hospitable environment in the suburbs. Not that this transition is easy: desisters tended to live in unkempt homes and have large debts and low-paying jobs. They were also more likely to remain single, live alone, and experience social isolation. So while these people may have avoided a life of crime, they did not avoid social problems all together.