Law - Criminal Reading assignment #3
Developmental Crime Prevention (DCP)
Concepts & Theories
1
Introduction
• Developmental theories of criminality posit that most people pro-social development –We are thus trying to explain what “goes
wrong” in the developmental process
• Developmental crime prevention programs target the “psychological” causes of crime –Focuses on the potential of individuals to
become criminal
Introduction • DCP assumptions? – This “criminal potential” develops as a result of
social processes in early life experiences – Most importantly: social learning
• But developmental theories also move beyond basic social learning ideas
• What about later (adult) experiences? – “Life course” theories are an alternative that see
developmental process as a “messier” affair • People head along “trajectories” that can change over time
Developmental theories of criminality
• Self-control theory (“general theory of crime”) • Multiple pathways to crime • Social development theory • Integrated cognitive antisocial potential theory
(ICAP) • Labeling theory • Theory of criminal embeddedness • Age-graded life course theory
Self-control theory (i.e., general theory)
• Crime and deviance are natural – Social learning theory • Pro-social behavior is natural • Anti-social behavior (i.e., deviance) is learned
– Social control says • Anti-social behavior (i.e., deviance) is natural • Pro-social behavior must be learned
• Low self-control is the key predictor – People with low self-control are attracted to crime • Crime and deviance offer quick, fun, exciting rewards
Self-control theory • Self-control develops early and cannot be
changed later – Propensity to offend is stable over life course • A person with low self-control by adulthood is basically
a “lost cause”
• Low self-control develops as a result of poor parenting practices – Good parenting provides caring and attachment,
supervision and monitoring, and consistent punishment of deviant behavior
Multiple pathways (Moffit’s taxonomy)
• Moffitt (1991) posits 3 distinct developmental trajectories: – Non-offenders – Adolescent-limited offenders – Life-course persistent offenders
• Adolescent-limited offenders – Prosocial during childhood – Commit deviant acts during adolescence –Mature out of crime by adulthood
Multiple pathways (Moffit’s taxonomy)
• Life-course persistent offenders – Antisocial in childhood – Commit deviant acts through life course
• Neuropsychological deficits (genetics, prenatal conditions, poor nutrition, etc.) in context of disadvantaged or troubled families may lead to poor self-control, limited cognitive abilities, and temperament problems
• Adolescent-limited offending is developmentally normal – But life-course persistent offenders is not
developmentally normal, and involves a stable propensity to offend over life course
Social development theory
• Protective factors and risk factors interact during childhood and adolescence – Dynamic model where person can change over time
• No stable propensity to offend (e.g., self-control theory)
– But there are cumulative effects • Makes it hard to change one’s path as life course unfolds
• Two possible pathways: prosocial and antisocial – Lots of factors push in each direction
• What causes one path to “win”?
Social development theory
• Protective and risk factors are mostly social – Human beings are social creatures, so social
environment matters • Not just stable personality traits (i.e., genetics)
– Interaction of social structure, external constraints, and individual constitutional factors
• Changes in social environment can change pathway – DCP interventions should try to replace risk factors
with protective factors • More room for change compared to self-control theory or life-
course persistent offenders
Integrated cognitive antisocial potential theory (ICAP)
• Asks two questions: – (1) Why do people become criminals?
• This is a developmental question – (2) Why do people commit offenses?
• This is a broader, situational question
• Integrated developmental theory is based on insights from many other theories – Aspects of social learning, cognitive theory, strain
theory, control theories, labeling theory, and rational choice & routine activities theory
ICAP theory • Long-term risk factors – Energizing factors (e.g., desire for risk, status, sex) – Modeling factors (e.g., antisocial peers, role models) – Socialization factors (e.g., self-control, attachment)
• Short-term risk factors – Anger, boredom, frustration, intoxication
• Prevention can be aimed at either: – (1) early interventions to discourage criminal tendencies
• Long term factors – (2) interventions that target at-risk situations
• Short-term factors
Age-graded life course theory
• Informal social control theory – People will commit deviance without social control
• Unlike social learning, this sees deviance as more natural – Social bonds are the main source of informal social control
• Attachment to prosocial others • Commitment to prosocial goals • Involvement in prosocial activities • Belief in prosocial morality
• Offenders can desist from crime over life course – Everyone can exercise agency (less deterministic)
• So early development does not pre-determine later outcomes
Age-graded life course theory • Social bonds vary over life course – Children • Family and school bonds
– Children with strong bonds to family and school are less likely to develop antisocial behaviors
– Adolescents • Peer bonds
– Adolescents with prosocial bonds among peers are less likely to engage in delinquency
– Young adults • Employment and marriage bonds
– Adults who are employed or married have prosocial bonds and are less likely to engage in crime
• Self-reinforcing process – Secondary deviance is worse than primary deviance
• So criminal justice contact can make things worse
• DCP programs??? – Radical non-intervention – Re-integrative shaming – Restorative justice
Labeling theory
Primary deviance
Labeling Role engulfment
Secondary deviance
RISK-FACTOR PREVENTION Developmental Crime Prevention
Risk-factor prevention paradigm • Basic idea – Identify the key risk factors for offending and implement
prevention methods designed to counteract them
• Three types of factors – Risk factors
• Variables that predict high probability of offending – Promotive factors
• Variables that predict low probability of offending – Protective factors
• Variables that predict low probability of offending among persons exposed to risk factors
Developmental risk factors • Individual risk factors
– Low intelligence/academic attainment
– Low empathy – Impulsivity/low self-regulation – Poor social cognitive skills
• Family risk factors – Poor parental supervision – Harsh punishment – Poor familial attachment – Child abuse/neglect – Disrupted family (i.e., broken
home)
• Social risk factors – Low socioeconomic status – Deviant peer influence – Neighborhood factors
• Not all correlates are risk factors – Age – Sex – Race/ethnicity – Criminal parents – Large family size
Individual risk factors • Impulsivity/self-regulation
– Hyperactivity (e.g., ADHD) predicts future offending – Impulsivity (including daring and risk-taking) predicts
future offending • But living in “good neighborhood” is a protective factor
• Intelligence/school achievement – Low IQ (especially verbal IQ) predicts future offending
• Even after controlling for social class – School failure predicts future offending
• School achievement is a protective factor – Hyperactivity, high impulsivity, and low intelligence may
be linked to deficits in executive function of brain
Family risk factors • Child rearing methods (key = attachment)
– Poor parental supervision predicts offending – Poor parental discipline (e.g., harsh, inconsistent) predicts offending – Lack of emotional attachment with parents predict offending
• Greater parental involvement promotes prosocial behavior
• Child abuse – Abused and neglected children are more likely to offend later in life
• Parental conflict – Parental conflict (e.g., fighting, violence) predicts offending
• Disrupted families – Single parent (i.e., “broken homes”) predict offending
• Possibly due to lower parental supervision or parental conflict
– Teenage mother also predicts offending
Social risk factors • Peer influence
– Peer delinquency (i.e., delinquent friends) predicts offending • Does peer contagion cause delinquency or do delinquent youth just
tend to become peers (i.e., homophily)? – Gang involvement is highly predictive of offending
• Socioeconomic status – Low SES family is predictive of future offending
• Mediated by family socialization practice – Positive attachment to parents is protective for low SES youth
• Neighborhood factors – Urban neighborhoods are predictive of offending, even
controlling for SES • Urban neighborhoods seem to have lower informal social control
than rural or suburban neighborhoods
Promotive and protective factors • Risk factor “opposites” may be promotive or protective
– Individual protective factor • High school achievement may protect against deviancy for at-risk
youth – E.g., For youth who come from homes with parental conflict—family risk
factor—high school achievement makes offending less likely
– Family protective factor • Positive parenting practices (attachment, supervision, discipline,
involvement) may protect against deviancy for at-risk youth – E.g., For youth in urban, low-SES neighborhoods—social risk factor—high
parental involvement makes offending less likely
– Social protective factor • High SES may protect against deviancy for at-risk youth
– E.g., For youth who are impulsive or low achieving—individual risk factors— high SES makes offending less likely
Addressing risk factors • Main developmental risk factors that should
be targeted by intervention programs: – Impulsiveness – School achievement – Child-rearing methods – Young mothers and child abuse – Parental conflict and disrupted families – Delinquent peers – Poverty and disadvantaged neighborhoods
Reducing risks vs. improving protection?
• Most programs focus on reducing risk factors – But some risk factors are hard to change
• Targeting risk factors also focuses attention on deficits and negative traits – Might this creating labeling effects?
• Alternative approach is to encourage protective factors – Focus on building resilience for at-risk kids
• More research on promotive/protective factors needed!
Limitations to DCP? • First, can mutable early risk factors be identified?
– Criminal parents, large families, community deprivation, not easily changed
– Other risk factors may be difficult to identify • Especially in complex social contexts
• Second, DCP targets high-risk individuals – In this way, it is closer to secondary than primary prevention
• I.e., it may be harder to prevent offending with “at-risk” samples
• Third, DCP programs require a long time – Goal is long-term impact, and programs may need to be lengthy
• This requires considerable resources as well as cooperation from subjects
• Fourth, can effective programs be scaled up? – As we will see next week, the most effective DCP programs tend to
be small and intense – How do we generalize these small programs?