The Routledge International Handbook of Life-Course Criminology

Arjan Blokland, Victor van der Geest, Arjan Blokland, Victor van der Geest

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317603009
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

Since its introduction in the latter half of the 1980s, the meticulous study of distinct criminal career dimensions, like onset, frequency, and crime mix, has yielded a wealth of information on the way crime develops over the life-span. Policymakers in turn have used this information in their efforts to tailor criminal justice interventions to be both effective and efficient. Life-course criminology studies the ways in which the criminal career is embedded in the totality of the individual life-course and seeks to clarify the causal mechanisms governing this process.

The Routledge International Handbook of Life-Course Criminology provides an authoritative collection of international theoretical and empirical research into the way that criminal behavior develops over the life-span, which causal mechanisms are involved in shaping this development, and to what degree criminal justice interventions are successful in redirecting offenders' criminal trajectories. Drawing upon qualitative and quantitative research this handbook covers theory, describes and compares criminal career patterns across different countries, tests current explanations of criminal development, and using cutting-edge methods, assesses the intended and unintended effects of formal interventions.

This book is the first of its kind to offer a comprehensive overview of state-of-the-art developments in criminal career and life-course research, providing unique perspectives and exclusive local knowledge from over 50 international scholars. This book is an ideal companion for teachers and researchers engaged in the field of developmental and life-course criminology.

1

Taking stock of life-course criminology

Arjan Blokland and Victor van der Geest

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The imprint that life-course criminology has had on academic criminology is hard to exaggerate. Despite its relatively recent advent, developmental concepts used and introduced by criminal career and life-course scholars to describe criminal development, like onset, duration, diversification, escalation, desistance, and persistence, have become well and truly part of the criminological vocabulary. Citation numbers for seminal life-course criminological papers and books are already in the multiple thousands, and can be expected to continue to grow as new life-course papers are ceaselessly being published in the discipline’s major academic journals. Recent editions of popular criminological text books have begun to add chapters specifically aimed at introducing the basics of life-course criminology to new generations of students further increasing its momentum. The establishment of the European Working Group on Developmental and Life-course Criminology (in 2006) and the Division of Developmental and Life-course Criminology (in 2012), respectively under the flag of the European Society for Criminology (ESC) and the American Society of Criminology (ASC), further attest to the continued popularity of the life-course approach among criminological researchers. Taken together, these developments suggest that life-course criminology is not just a passing fad but has permanently changed the field of criminological inquiry. In fact, some have concluded that modern day criminology is life-course criminology (Cullen, 2011), and that the life-course paradigm should be adopted as the sole organizing framework for the study of crime causation.

In general, the life-course refers to the age-graded sequence of socially sanctioned roles that link different phases of the life span from birth to the adult years. Successively occurring events and transitions in particular life-course domains form the different developmental trajectories that in combination make up the individual’s life-course. Central to the life-course approach is the notion that these different development patterns are intrinsically and reciprocally linked, with events and transitions in one particular domain affecting developmental pathways and opportunities in other domains and vice versa. Life-course explanations are age-graded in the sense that certain events and transitions may be particularly salient in explaining development during one phase of the life span, but not in others. Elder (1998) goes on to identify four themes of life-course research. First, the timing of lives is important, referring to the notion that the impact of certain events and transitions may be conditional both on the age at which these events and transitions occur and on the developmental progress the individual has made in that particular or other life-course domain(s). That is, the life-course consequences of becoming a parent are likely to differ for a single, school-going, teen mom who shares a bedroom with her younger sister in her parental home, compared to a married, working, adult mother who together with her partner lives in a spacious three bedroom apartment. Social conventions regarding the timing and sequence of events are also important in this respect, linking the timing of lives to the second important life-course theme: the location in time and place. As social norms regarding for whom and when certain transitions are appropriate differ across historical period and cultural location, life-course development is likely to take different routes for individuals living their lives within these socio-temporal boundaries. To stick with the transition to motherhood example mentioned above, religious or traditional norms regarding extramarital sex may importantly shape parental reactions to their teen daughter becoming a mother. Humans are inherently social beings, and just as developments in one aspect of life influence developments in other aspects within the individual’s life-course, so too can developments in the lives of others impact the individual’s current circumstances and future prospects both within and across generational boundaries. Their teen daughter giving birth also hurls the parents into a grandparental role which they may or may not be willing or able to fulfill at that particular time in their lives. This notion of linked lives constitutes the third theme in life-course research. Finally, however unexpected life’s twists and turns may be, events and transitions rarely completely dictate behavior, and alternative reactions to different events and transitions mostly remain numerous, leaving room for individual agency—the fourth theme Elder identified—in purposely shaping development. Or, as Laub and Sampson (2003) put it: certain life-events may present the individual with doors to new opportunities, yet for these opportunities to be realized, the individual must first turn the key.

These features make the life-course approach particularly appealing for studying criminal behavior. First, rather than taking a snapshot of behavior at a certain age the life-course approach challenges researchers to examine behavioral development over the entire life span. Beyond explaining why different individuals vary in their criminal behavior at some point in time, life-course criminology aims to account for why the same individual behaves differently during different periods of his or her life. Not satisfied with scrutinizing a certain age-period—like adolescence—life-course criminologists tend to ask: “And then what happens?”, thus broadening the scope of both empirical and theoretical research from birth—or even before that—to old age. Unsurprisingly, longitudinal studies—following the same individuals over time—are the hallmark of life-course studies, and therefore also of the current volume.

Second, taking a life-course approach entails viewing development of the behavior of interest as an integral part of the broad scope of developments simultaneously taking place in the individual’s life. For life-course criminologists the onset, continuation, and cessation of criminal behavior cannot be fully understood if studied in isolation. Instead, criminal development is viewed as continuously influenced by events and transitions the individual goes through in other areas of life, including school, work, and romantic relationships. In this the pendulum swings both ways as criminal development itself may also speed up or rather delay or even prevent events and transitions from happening in other life-course domains. Much of life-course research, including the research presented in this volume, is dedicated to disentangling these reciprocal relationships that govern criminal development.

Third, despite limitations following structural, individual, or developmental factors, at any point in life the individual is left with a conundrum of possible future developmental pathways. Life-course criminology is thus characterized by a non-deterministic view of development, leaving ample room for individual agency and choice. Individuals make these decisions not merely based on certain events and circumstances but rather based on their interpretation of these events and circumstances. To fully grasp the ways offenders interpret and re-interpret their offending at different life stages, qualitative studies into the ways offenders negotiate their prior experiences and current circumstances and how this guides their future choices and behavior are therefore warranted. The life-course approach thus offers a common ground for both quantitative and qualitative criminological research, as is reflected by the studies included in the current volume.

Structure of the volume

The current volume showcases state-of-the-art theoretical and empirical work in life-course criminology, covering the full range of topics relevant to studying criminal development across the life span. Each part harbors the work of scholars from different countries and different scientific disciplines, evidencing the broad appeal the life-course approach has to researchers from different social and academic backgrounds.

Part I covers the latest developments in life-course criminological theory. Whereas early theoretical work in life-course criminology, such as the age-graded theory by Sampson and Laub (1993) or Moffitt’s dual taxonomy (Moffitt, 1993), remains a pivotal source of inspiration for the field, new theories have started to emerge addressing issues these early theories left unanswered. Inspired by the results from one of the key longitudinal datasets in life-course criminology, the Cambridge Study of Delinquent Development (CSDD), Farrington (2010) has put forth the Integrated Cognitive Antisocial Potential, or ICAP theory. Fully cognizant of the many different levels of influence that guide human behavior, this theory distinguishes long-term persisting individual differences from short-term variations in what is called antisocial potential—the potential to commit antisocial acts—to explain why some individuals under some circumstances are more likely to engage in antisocial behavior than others in the same circumstances, or than themselves in different circumstances. Chapter 2 (Farrington & McGee) outlines this latest shoot on the life-course criminological stem, and provides an empirical test of some of its core predictions using CSDD-data spanning ages 8 to 56. Chapter 3 (Paternoster & Bachman) starts off by reviewing two popular life-course theories—Sampson and Laub’s (1993; Laub & Sampson, 2003) age-graded theory, and Giordano and colleagues’ (2002, 2007) cognitive transformation theory—focusing on the role of human agency in these theories. Concluding that these theories incorporate human agency only to a limited extent, the authors proceed to discuss how the more recently formulated identity theory may offer a more convincing account of how human agency is involved in the process of desisting from crime. In a true example of the scientific spirit, and showing that the die is far from cast in life-course criminological theory, Chapter 4 (Giordano) provides a rebuttal to the claims made in Chapter 3 by one of the original authors of the symbolic interactionist theory. Yet another novel approach to understanding delinquency and crime is reviewed in Chapter 5 (Treiber) which discusses the theoretical and methodological advances that have been made in the Peterborough Adolescent and Young Adult Development Study (PADS+) and how these advances may help forward life-course studies in delinquency and crime. Challenged by the longitudinal perspective of the life-course approach, this chapter examines how both continuity and change can be understood from the perspective of the Situational Action Theory. The final chapter of this part, Chapter 6 (Jang & Johnson), discusses religion and spirituality as often ignored but potentially important drivers of desistance. While popular in anecdotal accounts of criminal cessation, few life-course studies have viewed offenders as existential or spiritual beings. The authors introduce the concept of existential identity, which relates closely to identity theories discussed in Chapters 3 and 4, but also to the moral compass featuring in Situational Action Theory as discussed in Chapter 5.

Part II investigates important aspects of criminal careers. The criminal career paradigm has provided life-course criminological research both with the tools and the vocabulary to meticulously describe criminal development (Piquero et al., 2003). As such it laid the groundwork for life-course criminological theories aiming to explain these developmental patterns. Despite over three decades of criminal career research, the accepted knowledge based on criminal careers is still rather narrow and hindered by a lack of comparative research (Farrington, 2003). Chapter 7 (Elliot, Francis, Soothill & Blokland) provides another example of comparative criminal career research, this time comparing differences in crime-mix patterns across age between offenders from England & Wales and The Netherlands. Using a latent-transition conceptualization of specialization that is different from that in Chapter 8, analyses in this chapter reveal different developmental patterns of offending life styles across age, both within and between countries. Chapter 8 (Lussier, McCuish, Deslauriers-Varin & Corrado) revisits a longstanding debate in life-course criminology, namely the extent to which offenders tend to specialize or be versatile in their offending, framing this question explicitly in longitudinal terms. Using data from the ongoing longitudinal Canadian Incarcerated Serious and Violent Young Offender Study of serious young offenders spanning adolescence and early adulthood, this chapter innovatively uses group-based trajectory models to scrutinize developmental patterns in offending versatility from ages 12 to 23. Chapter 9 (Elonheimo, Frederiksen, Bernasco & Blokland) addresses this gap in the criminal career literature by comparing criminal career features of three comprehensive cohort studies across three different European countries: Finland, Denmark, and The Netherlands. Important similarities and differences in participation, frequency, type, and timing of offenses are found and these are interpreted against the background of social and legal differences between these jurisdictions.

Chapters in Part III focus on the development of delinquency and crime in adolescence and early adulthood. Several life-course criminological theories emphasize that the adolescent offender population, rather than being homogeneous, consists of various offender subtypes having different criminal career prospects and whose criminal behavior is governed by distinct risk factors and causal mechanisms (Moffitt, 1993; Thornberry & Krohn, 2005). Prospectively identifying adolescents most at risk of developing a prolonged criminal career, and informing the design of interventions best tailored to these youths’ specific needs, remains a key element of life-course criminological studies. Chapter 10 (Seddig & Reinecke) analyzes trajectories of self-reported offending in the Crime in the Modern City (Crimoc) study, an ongoing 10-wave longitudinal panel study of over 3,400 German youths covering ages 12 to 26. Contrary to expectations derived from criminal career research showing an early onset to predict prolonged criminal career duration, and specifically Moffitt’s typology of life-course persistent offenders, results from latent class growth analysis find evidence for a group of juvenile delinquents whose criminal trajectory is characterized by both an early onset and a high frequency of offending, but whose criminal career is nevertheless limited in duration. Chapter 11 (Kretschmer, Dijkstra & Veenstra) also applied trajectory modeling, in this case to chart developments in self-reported conduct problems during pre- to late adolescence. This study used four waves of data from the Tracking Adolescents’ Individual Lives Survey (TRAILS), a prospective cohort study of Dutch adolescents. Finding only a small percentage of adolescents following a trajectory of problem behavior resembling that of Moffitt’s adolescence-limited offenders, the authors speculate that cultural differences in childrearing practices and the general liberal views toward the behavior of adolescents that characterizes The Netherlands may influence the extent to which Dutch adolescents experience the maturity gap. Chapter 12 (Boonstoppel) draws from in-depth interviews with a subsample of young adults in the Pathways to Desistance Study, a prospective longitudinal study of desistance from crime among serious adolescent offenders from Phoenix, Arizona, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Based on in-depth interviews with 40 male and female offenders, this chapter examines change in offending, in terms of both intermittency and qualitative change, within the context of continuity of criminal behavior. Complementing prior quantitative work on the effect of life circumstances on crime, from these offenders’ own experiences it becomes clear that while the meaning of crime may change following transitions in other life-course domains, this does not necessarily translate into a decrease in the level of criminal behavior. Chapter 13 (Corovic, Andershed, Colins & Andershed) summarizes the key findings of the Individual Development and Adaption (IDA) study. This study prospectively follows a representative samp...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Notes on contributors
• 1 Taking stock of life-course criminology
• Part I Theory
• Part II Criminal careers
• Part III Onset and continuation
• Part IV Offending over the life-course
• Part V Desistance from offending
• Part VI Official interventions
• Author Index
• Subject Index