1. Theories of Juvenile Delinquency
CJ420 Juvenile Justice
Unit 3 Seminar
Jeff Collins

2. Welcome to the Seminar Jeff Collins JCollins@Kaplan.edu
AIM Screen Name: JeffCollins1198
Office Hours – Monday Evenings 9:00 PM – 11:00 PM Eastern Time
Seminar Time, Monday nights at 8:00 PM Eastern Time

3. What Causes Delinquency?
What propels youths to commit delinquency?
Complex interplay of a variety of biological, genetic, and environmental factors
Further complicated by various reactions to environmental factors
Why do only a few individuals who experience the same environments as many others actually commit crime?
Criminological theories provide a scientific way to approach and understand why people commit crime

4. Criminological Paradigms
Classical School Theories
Focus on individual free will and our ability to make choices as the central explanation for committing delinquency/crime
Positive School Theories
Embraces determinism and scientific method: Recognizes the role of forces that individuals cannot control or may not be aware of on crime and the role of science to discover what these factors are
The positive school has 3 basic approaches: biological, psychological, and sociological

5. Theories Within Classical School
Deterrence Theory
Focuses on relationship between punishment and misbehavior
Must be certainty, severity, and celerity in punishment
Rational Choice Theory
Decision to commit crime involves weighing the costs and benefits associated with that crime
Bounded rationality
Gang members deal drugs to make money believing that they can evade detection and capture

6. Classical School Routine Activities
Focuses on the opportunity for crime to occur
Interaction of the following: suitable targets, absence of capable guardians, and presence of motivated offenders

7. Positive School—Biological Theories
Genetic transmission of criminal tendencies (Born Criminal)
Hormonal imbalances
Neurological dysfunction
Developmental Theory (Biosocial Theories) Criminality is learned

8. Positive School—Psychological Theories
Intelligence—IQCrime
Psychodynamic Theory (Freud & psychic phenomenon)
Superego moral branch or conscience
Underdeveloped/Overdeveloped Superego
Basis for Antisocial Personalities & Impulsivity

9. Psychological Theories
Behavioral Theory (Skinner & measurable events)
Used as basis for Social Learning Theory
Conditioning
Any type of social behavior, both good and bad behaviors can be taught by rewarding the individual after the completion of the good or bad behavior

10. Positive School—Sociological Theories
Social Structure Theories
Anomie Theory - discrepancy between goals within society and legitimate means to attain those goals
Strain Theory – the strain that is placed on people who want to pursue these goals but do not have legitimate means to do so
Social disorganization – found that crime was not divided equally within cities (low rent, deteriorating neighborhoods)

11. Sociological Theories
Social Process Theories
Differential Association/Learning Theory – social behavior is learned from family, friends or gangs including deviant behavior
Social Conflict
Labeling and Stigma
Law breakers are often labeled and once labeled, they carry the stigma with them and may always be looked at as a criminal

12. What Do We Know About Offenders?
Small group of offenders (6-25%) are responsible for majority of crime
There is a pattern of offending that ultimately defines subgroups of offenders
Serious: Commit serious property crime
Violent: Commit serious violent crime
Chronic: Commit 4 or more offenses of any type
Serious, Violent, Chronic Offenders
Patterns of offending in childhood and adolescence are related to adulthood offending
Patterns of offending can be identified through the identification of behaviors related to offending pathways

13. Developmental & Life Course Theories
The Life-Course Perspective
Human development viewed across the life span
Childhood, adolescent and adult experiences are continuous process of change
Individuals progress within culturally defined roles and social transitions that are age-graded
Trajectories or pathways=the avenue of development over time; long-term patterns of development in social institutions (e.g., educational career)
Transitions=short-term changes in social roles within long-term trajectories (e.g., divorce)
Developmental theories try to account for offender careers and their relationship with age
This area or research began in criminology during the late 1980s and began to grow over the 1990s

14. Life Trajectories Life-course is a series of interlocking trajectories
Generally consistent
Impact all domains of life
Short-term transitions (or life events) interrupt
Transitions can be consistent or disruptive
“Off-age” transitions (e.g., teenage pregnancy) can produce disorder and change the direction of a trajectory
Key: How individuals adapt to changes
Person A may start a life of crime while person B doesn’t get involved in crime
Attempts to explain the onset, escalation, de-escalation, and desistence in offending careers
Various factors influence experience and change: individual factors, family factors, school factors, peer groups, and community factors
Research in this are requires longitudinal research and within-individual changes
Previous research often relied on cross-sectional studies
Previous research largely defined by between-group differences

15. Different Theories
Many developmental/life course theories have been developed, only three will be highlighted for this class:
Moffitt’s Dual Taxonomy
Sampson & Laub’s Age-Graded Theory
Gottfredson & Hirschi’s General Theory of Crime

16. Moffitt’s Developmental Theory
Close inspection of crime rate trends over the life-course indicate that there are two types of offenders:
Adolescent limited offenders: antisocial behavior is temporary and situational
Life-course persistent offenders: antisocial behavior is permanent and stable
Timing and duration of offending is critical aspect between the types of offenders—stable v. unstable antisocial behavior

17. Defining the Life-Course Persistent Offender
Underlying trait that begins at very early age and continues throughout life and underlies a variety of problem behaviors
Age 4: biting and hitting
Age 10: Truancy and shoplifting
Age 16: Sell drugs/steal cars
Age 22: Robbery and rape
Age 30: Fraud and child abuse
Persistence of other problem behaviors throughout life: Drug addiction, homelessness, unstable relationships, domestic violence, and mental illness

18. Factors Related to Life Course Persistence
Difference exists in individual differences in neuropsychological functions of infant nervous system
What can cause these differences to occur?
Disruption in fetal brain development/brain injury
Maternal drug use
Poor nutrition
Exposure to toxic agents
Birth complications
Lack of stimulation and affection
Abuse/neglect
Results in neuropsychological deficits (temperament, behavior development, and cognitive abilities)

19. LCP Interaction in Environment
Reactive interaction-react to environment with their style
Proactive interaction-select or create environment to support style (e.g., selecting similar mate)
Cumulative consequences-underlying trait sets downhill path in motion
Contemporary consequences-impact of trait on environment
Why do LCP fail to desist in their offending?
Fail to learn conventional prosocial alternatives due to rejection and lack of opportunities
Become ensnared in deviant lifestyle

20. Intervention
Underlying trait underlies deficiencies in temperament, developmental milestones, and cognitive abilities
Interaction with environment creates the antisocial personality and is fixed (according to Moffitt) before 18 years old
Therefore, treatment is difficult after this point

21. Adolescent Limited
Statistically, it is rare for individual to refrain from crime during adolescence
The defining characteristic for most adolescents, however, is the lack of consistency in their offending
Why do a few not get involved in delinquency during adolescence?
No maturity gap: Late puberty or access to opportunities
Personal characteristics that exclude from networks Few opportunities for mimicking

22. Explaining AL Behavior
Motivation: Duration of adolescence has lengthened, forcing those in the age group to delay their entry into adulthood
Social mimicry: When one species adopts the social behavior of more successful species to obtain access to a valuable resource
Valuable resource=Mature status and the power and privilege that comes with it
LCP become influential in the peer structure—delinquency that was stigmatizing as a child is not normative group behavior because it provides an avenue to the valuable resource
Reinforcement: The negative consequences that result from delinquency “fit” with need and desire to rebel

23. Explaining AL Desistence
At the end of adolescence, motivation wanes because of the change in circumstance—entry into adulthood
Exempt from cumulative and contemporary continuity, so opportunities and acceptance is not an issue
Delinquency for these adolescents is considered normative rather than abnormal
Best adjusted adolescents appear to be those who have experimented and been responded to with consistent and reasonable discipline

24. Sampson & Laub’s Age-Graded Theory
Main proposition=an individual’s propensity to offend is dependent upon involvement in conventional activities
Informal social controls are the main focus of this theory
Although trajectories are influenced by early experiences, Sampson & Laub believe that social factors (specifically informal controls) can modify trajectories, reducing offending in adulthood—criminality is not solely defined by traits rooted in childhood
“Turning points”=the mechanisms that alter the life course, changing a risk pathway to a more adaptive one
Life-course development is dynamic regardless of age
The role of transitions within life trajectories generates turning points or changes in one’s pathway

25. Influencing Factors
Childhood: Family dynamics including erratic/harsh discipline, low levels of supervision, parental rejection
Adolescence: Association with delinquent peer groups, lack of attachment to school, involvement in the juvenile justice system
Young adulthood: Labor markets, marriage, prison, military

26. A General Theory of Crime
Low self-control is ultimately the cause of criminality
Low self-control results from parents failing to:
Monitor behavior
Recognizing problem behavior
Punishing problem behavior properly
People with low self-control will constantly be involved in delinquency and other problem behaviors
Low self-control becomes “locked” for individuals at a very young age (8 or 9 years old)

27. Developmental Pathways for Females
Requires attention to the gender-specific patterns in offender careers over the life course (e.g., victimization)
Although factors influencing offending may be similar across gender, the intensity and role of these factors may differ
Kempf-Leonard suggests the following “stepping stones” for females
1st Stepping Stone: Child Abuse
2nd Stepping Stone: Mental health problems
3rd Stepping Stone: Running away
4th Stepping Stone: Youth gang involvement
5th Stepping Stone: Juvenile justice involvement & experiences

28. In sum…
Early intervention is needed to most effectively altering offending pathways
Identification of persistent offenders is difficult and subject to inaccuracies because a small proportion of individuals who exhibit signs of offending careers actually become chronic offenders

29. Evolution of Theories Turn of 20th Century 1920s-1930s 1940s-1950s
Physical abnormalities (Lombroso)
Intelligence (Goddard--feeble-mindedness)
1920s-1930s
Psychoanalytic approaches to behavior
Body Types & Personalities
Social Disorganization (Beginning of Sociological)
1940s-1950s
Cognitive approaches to behavior
Differential Association & Subcultural Theories
Strain Theory

30. Evolution of Theories 1960s to 1970s 1980s Twin & Adoption Studies
Social Control Theory
Conflict & Labeling Theories
Critical Theories (Feminism, Marxist)
1980s
Social Learning (Differential Association Updated)
General Strain Theory (Strain Updated)
Deterrence (General to Specific)
Rational Choice/Routine Activities

31. Evolution of Theory 1990s Developmental Theory (Criminal Careers)
Life Course Theory (Criminal Careers)
General Theory of Crime (Twist on Control)
2000s
Continued theory testing—specific v. general theories
Emphasis on Developmental Theory

32. Thank You
Any questions?
See you next week…