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Samenvatting Criminal Behavior During The Life Course
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Summary of lectures and knowledge clips from the year 2021/2022
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Criminal behavior over the life courseWeek 1
Kennisclip
Criminal career - longitudinal sequence of crimes committed by an individual offender.
4 dimensions of a criminal career
1. Participation; people who engage in crime vs those who don’t
2. Frequency; rate of activity, number of offences
3. Seriousness; minor vs serious, escalation vs de-escalation and specialization
4. Duration; length of criminal activity
The use of a life history calendar (LHC) shows us the criminal career of someone.
Age of onset the age where the first criminal activity has happened.
Termination when the person stops doing criminal activities.
Hoorcollege
Age crime curve facts of criminality over the life course age and crime seems to be
engaged.
aggregate age crime curve.
Adolescents and young adults commit a disproportionate amount of crime.
The data for this fact;
- Official data: arrests peak in late teens/early 20s
- Self-report: teens and young adults report more criminal behavior than other age
groups
- Victim surveys: victims most commonly report offenders to be teenagers/young
adults.
Wolfgang a really small group was responsible for more than the half of all the crimes.
Hirschi & Gottfredson (1983) General theory of crime.
- age-crime curve = one of the ‘brute facts of criminology’. It hasn’t changed in 100
years, so their explanations are always valid.
- Crime declines with age; people age out of crime.
Invariant: across time, people and countries etc.
Consistent explanations across age
Only difference in degree
, - So longitudinal research is not necessary because crime declines with age and you
cant do anything about it. This started the “great debate”.
The Great Debate debate about if age-crime curve is invariant (=onveranderbaar).
Why does crime decline with age?
- Changes in social roles and contexts.
- Depends on the type of crime.
Critique from Steffensmeier et al. investigated how different the age-crime curve was in
comparison to the burglary curve. Some forms had the traditional age-crime curve but not
all of them were the same. So different type of crime is important!!
Critique from Dunger et al. difference between genders and age of onset!!
Age crime curve and what can we learn from it?
- 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 behaviors over time trying to understand these shared processes
and how they lead to changes of behavior? prevent?
Negative It ignores variations in the shape of the age-crime curve. Such as gender, early
or late starters and crime types.
With life course research we look to the whole life course of an individual, as well social,
cognitive and physical.
Life course perspective aims to understand and explain changes in behavior over time, from
onset to desistence.
Trajectories the thing you’re looking at; in this course criminal behavior. It’s a collection
of different states in your life. Sequence of things happening over time. The path you follow.
Transitions a change in your life course. An example is entering a new school or
relationship. It’s an important change. Changes from context to context within an trajectory.
Impacts of transitions or trajectories and outcomes
- Age effect = age crime curve
- Period effects = what happens at the moment/period we are in
- Cohort effects = group of years where people were born; when they born and what
they experienced over time (age group).
high related but not always the same!
, Main principles (Elder)
Influences on the life course of an individual. Explain certain behavior. Trajectories and
transitions.
1. Social historical time and place
when and where you were born matters. The context of your life influences everything
that is going on in your life at a certain time.
- Birth cohort = influences social change and historical context.
- Historical context in which you are growing up.
- Social change = public changes in periods influence an individual, dependent on their
age and birth cohort. (period of crime/period of pandamic).
2. Human agency
Agency the capacity to exercise control over our lives (choice aspect).
An individual has a choice for behavior but is limited by social constraints.
- Chooses a criminal for his behavior or is he victim of other factors? (determinism).
3. Linked lives
Individuals are linked to others, those influence their life course.
- Connections: parents, peers, partners, siblings, communities.
- These connections can influence the life course true decisions, social processes, and
criminal behavior.
4. Timing
When something happens has influence. The age at which events occur affects.
- Time of arrest
- Interventions
- Parental incarceration
- Negative life event
The stage of development and social norms are also important.
Key terms in life course research
- Cumulative continuity events/actions in the past have causal effects on behavior
in the future. Crime in the past can through various mechanisms (direct or indirect)
cause an individual to commit a crime again in the future.
- Self-selection perspective (Hirschi & Gottfredson) individual factors/traits can
explain behavior. Variation in these factors (low self control, lack of morals) between
people explains the variation in behavior.
Age, period or cohort doesn’t matter; only the relationship between the factors and criminal
behavior can explain criminal behavior and predict who commit crimes.
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