Developmental and Life-Course Criminology
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1
What is developmental criminology?
The study of how criminal and antisocial behavior emerges, changes, persists, or ends across stages of human development.
2
What is life-course criminology?
The study of offending trajectories and how life events, social relationships, and transitions influence criminal behavior over time.
3
What is the age-crime curve?
The commonly observed pattern in which offending rises during adolescence, often peaks in the late teenage years or early adulthood, and generally declines with age.
4
What is the difference between prevalence and frequency of offending?
Prevalence measures the proportion of people who offend, while frequency measures how often offenses occur among individuals or within a population.
5
What is onset in criminal career research?
The age or developmental stage at which an individual's offending behavior begins.
6
What is persistence in developmental criminology?
The continuation of offending behavior over time or across developmental periods.
7
What is desistance from crime?
The process through which an individual reduces and eventually ceases offending.
8
What is a criminal career?
The sequence of an individual's offending behavior over time, including onset, frequency, seriousness, duration, and cessation.
9
What is a developmental trajectory?
A pattern of behavior or change followed by an individual or group across successive periods of life.
10
What is continuity in antisocial behavior?
The tendency for behavioral patterns or risk-related characteristics to remain relatively stable across time.
11
What is discontinuity in criminal behavior?
A substantial change in an individual's offending pattern, potentially associated with development or changing circumstances.
12
Who proposed the influential developmental taxonomy distinguishing adolescence-limited and life-course-persistent antisocial behavior?
Terrie E. Moffitt.
13
In what year did Moffitt publish her influential developmental taxonomy of antisocial behavior?
1993.
14
What are Moffitt's two principal developmental categories?
Life-course-persistent and adolescence-limited antisocial behavior.
15
What is life-course-persistent antisocial behavior in Moffitt's taxonomy?
A pattern beginning relatively early in life and continuing across multiple developmental stages.
16
What is adolescence-limited antisocial behavior?
A pattern concentrated primarily in adolescence that tends to decline as individuals enter adult roles.
17
What is the maturity gap in Moffitt's theory?
The period when adolescents experience a discrepancy between biological maturity and access to adult social privileges or responsibilities.
18
How does the maturity gap help explain adolescence-limited delinquency?
Some adolescents may imitate antisocial behavior as a way of seeking autonomy, status, or adult-like privileges.
19
What is social mimicry in Moffitt's developmental taxonomy?
The imitation of antisocial behavior by adolescents who perceive such conduct as providing status or autonomy.
20
What developmental factors are emphasized in Moffitt's explanation of life-course-persistent offending?
Interactions between early neuropsychological vulnerabilities and adverse or criminogenic social environments.
21
Why should Moffitt's developmental categories not be treated as fixed diagnoses?
They are theoretical descriptions of population patterns, not clinical diagnoses or certain predictions of an individual's future.
22
What is a major criticism of dividing offenders into only two developmental categories?
Real offending trajectories are heterogeneous and may include additional patterns not captured by a two-category model.
23
Who developed the age-graded theory of informal social control?
Robert J. Sampson and John H. Laub.
24
What is the central idea of Sampson and Laub's age-graded theory?
Social bonds and informal controls change across life stages, and meaningful adult relationships or institutions can redirect offending trajectories.
25
What is a turning point in life-course criminology?
An event or transition that substantially redirects an individual's behavioral trajectory.
26
What is the significance of stable employment in age-graded theory?
Meaningful employment may provide routine, responsibility, social bonds, and legitimate opportunities that support desistance.
27
What is the significance of marriage or a committed partnership in age-graded theory?
A supportive relationship may strengthen informal social control, alter routines, and facilitate desistance, although the effect is not automatic.
28
What is the difference between a life transition and a turning point?
A transition is a change in role or status; a turning point is a transition or experience that produces a lasting change in trajectory.
29
What is cumulative continuity in life-course criminology?
The process through which earlier behavior and its consequences help maintain similar behavioral patterns over time.
30
What is cumulative disadvantage?
A process in which earlier disadvantages or sanctions generate additional barriers that compound over time.
31
How can criminal justice involvement contribute to cumulative disadvantage?
A criminal record or repeated institutional disruption may restrict employment, education, relationships, or other opportunities.
32
What is state dependence in criminal career research?
The idea that previous offending or its consequences can causally affect the likelihood of subsequent offending.
33
What is population heterogeneity in explanations of persistent offending?
The idea that relatively stable differences among individuals help explain why some offend more frequently or persistently than others.
34
What is the distinction between state dependence and population heterogeneity?
State dependence emphasizes effects of earlier behavior on later behavior; population heterogeneity emphasizes enduring individual differences.
35
What is an offending trajectory group?
A group identified statistically because its members display broadly similar patterns of offending across observed time periods.
36
What is a group-based trajectory model?
A statistical method used to identify clusters of individuals with similar longitudinal patterns of behavior.
37
Why should trajectory group membership not be interpreted as an inevitable criminal destiny?
Statistical groups summarize observed patterns and cannot establish that every member will follow the same future course.
38
What is the difference between prospective and retrospective longitudinal research?
Prospective research follows participants forward in time; retrospective research reconstructs earlier experiences from records or recollections.
39
What is a longitudinal study?
Research that collects observations from the same individuals or units across multiple time points.
40
Why are longitudinal studies particularly valuable in developmental criminology?
They help establish the timing and sequence of experiences, risk factors, and behavioral changes.
41
What is the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development?
A long-running longitudinal study of males in London that has contributed evidence about offending, risk factors, and criminal careers.
42
Who is closely associated with the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development?
David P. Farrington.
43
What is the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study?
A longitudinal New Zealand birth-cohort study widely used to investigate development, health, behavior, and antisocial outcomes.
44
Scenario: A teenager begins minor offending at age 15 but stops after entering adulthood and assuming stable responsibilities. Which Moffitt category is most consistent with this pattern?
Adolescence-limited antisocial behavior.
45
Scenario: A child shows persistent conduct problems beginning early in life, with offending continuing into adulthood. Which developmental pattern is most consistent?
Life-course-persistent antisocial behavior.
46
Scenario: An individual with repeated convictions obtains stable work, develops supportive relationships, and gradually stops offending. Which theory best explains the change?
Sampson and Laub's age-graded theory of informal social control.
47
Scenario: A criminal conviction reduces access to employment, increasing financial instability and further offending risk. Which process is illustrated?
Cumulative disadvantage, potentially contributing to state dependence.
48
Scenario: A researcher follows the same group of children for 25 years to measure changes in offending. What research design is being used?
A longitudinal cohort study.
49
Scenario: Two individuals have similar adolescent arrest records, but one persists and the other desists after adulthood. What does this illustrate?
Developmental heterogeneity and the importance of studying changing life circumstances.
50
What is the principal contribution of life-course criminology to crime prevention?
It identifies developmental periods, changing risks, protective factors, and opportunities for interventions that support lasting desistance.
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