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Summary Criminology 310 Exam Notes (Section A - Unit 11)
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Criminology 310. Exam Notes.Unit 11. Pathway and Life-Course Perspectives.
WHY IS THE AGE-CRIME CURVE IMPORTANT? (5 MARKS)
Shows number of individuals engaging in crime
Understanding community level crime
Success of interventions
Lowering of peak = reduction of active offenders
Lowering of tail end = affect volume of serious crime
Higher + lower down slope = larger population not outgrown offending
The age-crime curve indicates when a population of youth starts to engage in offending, at what
age the largest proportion of youth engages in offenses, and in which period much desistance
takes place.
There are several reasons why the population age-curve is important:
a. In longitudinal data sets, the shape of the age-crime curve represents the number of
individuals who engage in crime in at least the first three decades of life.
b. The sum of different age-crime curves of successive cohorts represents community level of
crime as it changes over time. Thus, the age-crime curve of a given cohort is a building block
toward understanding the community level of crime.
c. One of the litmus tests for interventions is whether interventions eventually reduce
community levels of crime or, on a narrower level, reduce the age-crime curve. There are two
major ways that the age-crime curve can be reduced: first, by lowering the peak of the curve
and, second, by reducing the base of the curve.
d. Both lowering of the peak and reducing of the base of the curve reduce the number of active
offenders. Important is which methods promote desistance among active offenders.
, e. Most of the serious offenders – including violent offenders – are situated in the downslope of
the age-crime curve. Thus, the lowering of the tail end of the age-crime curve is likely to
affect the volume of serious crime in populations.
f. The higher and longer the downslope of the age-crime curve, the larger the population of
people who may not have outgrown offending or who may have started offending during
adulthood.
DISCUSS SAMPSON AND LAUB’S DEVELOPMENTAL MODEL OF CRIMINAL
BEHAVIOUR. (5 MARKS)
Life changes alter decisions (not) to commit crimes
Early antisocial tendencies = crime in adult life
Social structure factors = problems in development
Delinquent peers/siblings = likelihood for delinquency
NB: transitions (alter trajectories)
Individual stability and change are the primary foci of their theoretical perspective. Most
significantly, S&L emphasized the importance of certain events and life changes, which can alter
an individual’s decisions to commit (or not commit) criminal activity. Although based on a social
control framework, this model contains elements of other theoretical perspectives.
First, S&L’s model assumes, that early antisocial tendencies among individuals, regardless of
social variables, are often linked to later adult criminal offending.
Furthermore, some social structure factors (e.g. family structure, poverty, etc.) also tend to lead
to problems in social and educational development, which then leads to crime.
Another key factor in this development of criminality is the influence of delinquent peers or
siblings, which further increases an individual’s likelihood for delinquency.
However, S&L also emphasize the importance of transitions, or events that are important in
altering trajectories toward or against crime, such as marriage, employment or military service,
drastically changing a person’s criminal career. S&L show sound evidence that may individuals
who were one on a path toward a consistent form of behaviour, in this case, serious violent crime,
suddenly (or gradually) halted due to such a transition of series of transitions.
S&L’s framework contributed much to the knowledge of criminal offending by providing a more
specified and grounded framework that identified the ability of individuals to change their criminal
trajectories via life-altering transitions, such as the effect that marriage can have on a man or woman,
is quite profound.
DISCUSS GENDERED PATHWAYS TO CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR. (10 MARKS)
Focus on girls/women’s life histories
Not typically seen with men, or different to men
Chesney-Lind:
Victimization/trauma… depression… substance abuse
Run away … arrest … CJS (imprison, homeless, CSW, relationship with antisocial
men)
Daly:
Harmed and harming women
Street women
, Battered women
Drug-connected women
“other women”
Impact of abuse
Gendered pathways research has focused on girls’ and women’s life histories in order to
understand links between child and adult experiences and offending behaviours. The pathways
perspective recognizes various biological, psychological, and social realities that are unique to
the female experience and synthesizes these key factors into important theoretical trajectories
that describe female offender populations.
This literature argues that women’s criminal development and, more relevant to the current study,
recidivism is based on factors either:
a. Not typically seen with men
b. Typically seen with men but in even greater frequency with women
c. Seen in relatively equal frequency but with distinct personal and social effects for women.
Extensive interviews with female offenders have been informative in revealing the life experiences
that place girls and women at risk. Data has shown that criminally involved women have life
histories plagued with physical and sexual abuse, poverty, and substance abuse.
Chesney-Lind has long argued that female offending pathways are unique from male offending
pathways. Lind’s work highlights the intersection of abuse, depression, and drugs for women:
victimization and trauma often lead to depression and other internalized mood disorders, which then
frequently lead to self-mediating behaviour by abusing drugs. Additionally, although boys and girls
generally run away at approximately the same rates, girls are more frequently arrested for this
behaviour compared to boys. Unfortunately, this serves as a mechanism for getting girls involved in
the juvenile justice system and can ultimately lead to:
a. Their incarceration if they choose to continue to flee from abusive homes or violate other
conditions placed on them
b. Surviving on the streets
c. Prostitution, which can facilitate drug use
d. Relationships with antisocial men (sometimes violent) who provide for licit or illicit financial
needs.
Kathleen Daly’s work also greatly contributed to the pathway’s perspective, revealing how
experiences with abuse, substance abuse, poverty, dysfunctional families, and intimate relationships
are distributed differentially across women offenders.
Daly described five unique pathways to felony court based on her thorough review of the court
records of 40 women offenders:
a. “harmed and harming” women, who experienced abuse or neglect as children, were
labelled as “problem” children, acted out frequently, and suffered from substance abuse and
mental illness
b. “street” women, who often fled from abusive homes as children and became addicted to
substances and involved in prostitution and other criminal means, which contributed to
extensive criminal histories
c. “battered” women, whose involvement in the criminal justice system was directly
attributable to the abuse they experienced from violent intimate partners
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