Criminal Behavior During The Life Course (200700018)
Institution
Universiteit Utrecht (UU)
This documents contains the notes I took during the lectures and seminars of the course 'Criminal Behaviour during the Lifecourse' at University Utrecht.
Most of the notes are written in English as this is an English course.
Criminal Behavior During The Life Course (200700018)
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Criminal Behaviour over the Life Course
Lecture week 1
Age and Crime
- Fact: Adolescents and young adults commit a disproportionate amount of crime
- Data:
● Official data: arrests peak in late teens / early 20s
● Self-report: teens and young adults report more criminal behaviour than other age
groups
● Victim surveys: victims most commonly report offenders to be teenagers / young
adults.
Enter…
- Hirschi & Gottfredson (1983):
● Age-crime curve one of the ‘brute facts of criminology’
- Crime declines with age: ‘maturational reform’, ‘ageing-out’
● Invariant, Consistent explanations across age, Difference in degree
- So… why do we need criminal careers and longitudinal research?
Age-crime curve
- Why does crime decline with age
● Changes in social roles and context
● Depends on the type of crime
● ‘Society at large is faced perennially with an invasion of barbarians… [and] every adult
generation is faced with the task of civilizing those barbarians.’ - Ryder, 1989
- What does it tell us?
● How crime is distributed across a population according to the age of a population
● how distribution varies by crime type or over time
● Shared social behaviours over time
- What does it NOT tell us?
● Ignores variations in the shape of the age-crime curve, gender, early vs. late starters,
crime types
Implication
- Why does it matter?
● Our theoretical frameworks should be able to account for the age-crime relationship
● Who is the target for crime prevention / reduction?
● Why DOES crime decline with age?
Life course research
- Between-individual differences vs. within-individuals differences (= focus life course hierop)
- Trajectories - the frequency an event happens over time > vb frequency criminal events
happen
- Transitions - literary transition into new phase of something within trajectory
Age effect - age-crime curve >> increases over time
,Period effect - what is happening right now - which period, vb. corona >> decreases over time
Cohort effect - impact something has on different cohorts, when they were born and what they’ve
experienced over time
1. Social-historical time and place
- When and where you are born matters
● Birth cohort, historical context, social change
2. Human agency
- Agency: ‘the capacity to exercise control over our lives’
● Intentional choices / actions, made within societal constraints
3. Linked lives
- Individuals are linked with others
● Parents, peers, partners, siblings, communities
4. Timing
- Stage of development
- Social norms
- The age at which events occur affects trajectories and transitions
● e.g. timing of arrest, interventions, parental incarceration, negative life event
Key terms
- Cumulative continuity (of disadvantage)= events / actions have causal effect
- Self-selection = traits / disposition explain behaviour
● Variation in traits → variation in behaviour
Workgroup week 1
If you speak of a specific life span, so in this case 'lifespan of crime’, then you could say you’re talking
about a trajectory otherwise not.
Main arguments of both articles
- Gottfredson > age is big influence on the fact if someone commits a crime or not
- Steffensmeier > no, it's not an underlying factor, age is not a fixed variable
- Steffensmeier > different time periods give different crime peaks, different crimes give different
age peaks.
Elders five principles
1. Principle of Life-Span Development – Human development and aging are lifelong processes.
- Substantial changes in work; working in the serving business to working in
supermarkets.
2. Principle of Agency: Individuals construct their own life course through the choices and actions
they take within the opportunities and constraints of history and social circumstance.
- Choices; going on exchange multiple times, going on vacation in other countries,
working since I was 15, want to study abroad
- Actions; make to-do lists and completing them, creating structure in life
, 3. Principle of Time and Place: The life course of individuals is embedded and shaped by
historical times and places they experience over their lifetime
- Covid-19 pandemic that has influence on everyone’s life > no final exams, no prom, no
trip after exam, no vacation, no normal beginning of the Student life or beginning of my
academic year at the university.
4. Principle of Timing: The developmental antecedents and consequences of life transitions,
events, and behavioural patterns vary according to their timing in a person’s life
- Early age when experiencing divorced parents vs. later in life
5. Principle of Linked Lives: Lives are lived interdependently and socio-historical influences are
expressed through this network of shared relationships.
- Actions I make have influence on my mom’s life, because I live at home. Also works
the other way around
Lecture week 2 - life course theories 1
Theoretical frameworks
No single theoretical paradigm
- Genetic and biological factors
- Low self-control
- Development theories - cognitive, social
- Informal and formal social controls
● social bonds, connections
- Social learning perspectives
- Strain
Static theories - doesn’t really change over time as in getting higher or lower
- Population heterogeneity
● Traits / dispositions explain behaviour → relatively stable
● Variation in traits > variation in behaviour
- How do these traits develop (in childhood)?
- Gottfredson & Hirschi (1990) - A general theory of crime
● Theory of low self-control → invariance, rank-stable
● Low self-control - impulsive, insensitive, physical (as opposed to mental), risk-taking,
short-sighted
Low self-control
- Develops in early childhood (age 7-9), stable thereafter
● Parental socialization
● Any changes are due to opportunity and ability.
Perspectives: critique
- Gottfredson & Hirschi: crime is due to variations in low self-control
● Robust predictor
- But only explains small amounts of variation. Same individual differs in criminal behaviour
depending on social location. Self-control does change over time. Opportunity matters (social
context).
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