Essay about Theories of Crime

Based on the social disorganization theory; Shaw and McKay account for high crime begins with poverty, low socioeconomic status and the inability to “control the teenage population,” (Sampson, 2016). Shaw and McKay also knew that within the community, delinquency was a trait that was picked-up by and from other delinquents. Furthermore, if the ability to control young

When it comes to juvenile delinquency an adolescent personality is usually impacted from different factors such as early child hood experiences of witnessing a crime, seeing a violent act, being the victim of a crime, or being around others or family who engaged in criminal activity, these factors can either create an adolescent with a positive or negative attitude, or an anti-social behavior which could create a path for a delinquent behavior (Wilson, p. 34). A study has shown that family interactions accounts for about 40 percent of the cause of an adolescent with an anti-social behavior, the study also shown that aggressiveness which is a common trait of adolescent who engage in delinquent acts is usually created from peer influences (Wilson, p. 34).

Plenty of children engage in rough-and-tough play and may be a little mischievous from time to time. As they grow into adolescence, they may start committing crimes and get in trouble with the law, but most of these individuals outgrow their behavior and stop offending. What makes individuals persist or desist from crime? What are the key causal factors and mechanisms that help this behavior desist? An in-depth synthesis of John Laub and Robert Sampson’s theory of age-graded informal social control will provide insight as to why individuals desist from offending.

Bell Curve.” In this book by Herrnstein and Murray (1994), the authors reviewed previous empirical research and analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY). They argued for a strong link, even when socioeconomic disadvantage is taken into account, between low IQ and criminality. The NLSY data show that as IQ goes from very high to very low, the chance of involvement in criminality (based on arrest and self-report data) goes from to virtually 0% to almost 15% (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994).

You bring up some really interesting points regarding neurodevelopmental disorders and the high rate of incarceration among individuals with these disorders. As you mention, untreated childhood delinquency as well as growing up in an impoverished environment can increase the risk of an individual becoming a criminal as an adult. There is also evidence that the neurodevelopmental disorder, ADHD, may be associated with a tendency toward criminal behavior, although the relationship between the two is not yet well understood (Allen, 2010). However, similarly to some of the other neurodevelopmental disorders, if ADHD is left untreated, there is a serious risk for long-term problems, such as, substance abuse and becoming more prone to developing

Socioeconomic Status (SES) has been studies to see what role it plays on an individual’s development from childhood into adulthood. Studies have shown to have a great impact on an individual’s physical and psychological abilities throughout the developmental stages of pre-adolescents all the way to early adulthood. There have been studies showing that if one comes from a higher SES they already may have a higher intelligence score than those from lower SES backgrounds (Bates, Lewis & Weiss, 2013). SES has been studied to try and determine the relationship between poverty and criminal activity outcomes in poverty level areas. Still other studies have discussed lower SES as the underlying factors for crime rates,

This article was useful to my topic because, it touched upon early contact with the juvenile criminal justice system and how it pertains to a lifetime offending. This helped to see that although many juveniles commit minor crimes there are perspectives to indicate ways of knowing whether or not offenses will continue to happen in the lifespan. This article used a study of 817 males that exited a Louisiana juvenile correctional facility in 1976 and was put with information obtained about adult records of the participants dating up to 1988. The outcome was that both intellectual functioning and early contact with the juvenile system had strong association to adult offending. Both logistic and binomial regression models were used to explain and

Specifically, psychopaths with high intelligence had the tendency to exhibit violent behavior at early stages than nonpsychopaths with similar intelligence. Among children, studies have indicated that high IQ can enhance socially anxious children to overcome their tendencies to shyness. In particular, shy children are able to master their shyness by marshalling their cognitive resources, therefore, allowing them the chance to initiate social contacts. Furthermore, the findings of the research indicated that the motivation to perform well in school may counter negative behaviors and as result help to change an individual’s personality.

     In fact Sampson and Laub (1997) say that isolating criminal behavior as being caused by conduct disorder does not allow for the array of influences and interactions that lead a child with problems to criminal activity in adulthood. They suggest that a child with conduct problems starts in on a life of cumulative disadvantage. The conduct disorder might indeed be the

In essence, life course theory revolves around the processes, states and occurrences that happen during a lifetime as a predictor for future criminality. This theory does not hold on to one factor as a cause for criminality, rather it takes the whole life as an indicator of future criminal behavior. There are various life course theories that support this idea and they are; Social Development model, by J. David Hawkins, and Richard Catalano, Interactional Theory by Terence Thornberry, Marvin Krohn, Alan Lizotte, and Margaret Farnworth, then lastly, General Theory of Crime and Delinquency by Robert Agnew (Siegel, 302). Together, these theories support the idea that interactions and events in life can be a future prediction of crime.

Television presents fast-paced information that may result in shorten attention spans creating impulsive behaviour in youth that is in a constant need of stimuli because it has usually always given to them through media (Kirsh, 2010). This has a long-term effect on educational outcomes by leading to students having a difficult time paying attention in an environment, such as a classroom that has fewer stimuli. This will impede a youths learning capability that has been affected by having low self-control and high risk-taking behaviours (Baron, 2003; Forde, 1997; Kirsh, 2010). This is the example of Gottfredson and Hirshi’s general theory of crime that argues that low self-control is the reason that youth engage in criminal activity due to being

Gottfredson and Hirschi argue in their general theory of crime that low levels of self-control are related to antisocial behavior and criminal acts. There are three different parental management techniques that develop self-control in children (Gottfredson and Hirshi, 1990). The first technique is that parents must guide their children in the right direction as well as supervising them. Secondly, parents must pay close attention to their children and be able to recognize if they have antisocial actions. Lastly, parents must discipline and correct their offspring’s wrong behavior. These three techniques must be done in a timely manner, if parents wait till the child is too old to enforce, the techniques will not work. In the article, The Intergenerational Transmission of Low Self-Control, the authors, Brain Boutwell and Kevin Beaver conduct an experiment to see if low self-control is passed down through generation to generation.

According to McCord, Widom, and Crowell (2001), recent research on normal child development and the development of delinquent behavior have found that individual factors, social factors, environmental or communal factors can all influence individual’s behavior. There is also evidence of antisocial or delinquent behaviors resulting from various genetic, biological, and environmental factors that could be effected from the time the fetus first begins developing (McCord, et al., 2001). Identifying genetic abnormalities

Raine (2013) describes the influential aspects that define one’s vulnerability to criminal behaviour derives from physical, environmental and genetic factors. Modern day scientists have discovered through trials that brain imaging techniques are able to identify the physical deformations and functional abnormalities of the brain that may predispose them to violent and aggressive behaviours. Raine (2013) also elaborates on the physical and environmental factors that may predispose a person such as lead, alcohol, genes, early

Characteristically, juvenile delinquency follows a similar path just like normal adolescent development and children tend to follow delinquent and criminal behavior rather than engaging in it randomly. Research has shown that there are two types of delinquents, those in whom the onset of severe antisocial behavior begins in early childhood, and those in whom this onset coincides with entry into adolescence. With either type, these developmental paths give families, communities, and systems the opportunity to intervene and prevent the onset of antisocial behaviors and justice system involvement (APA, 2017).