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?