Deck 15: Developmental and Life Course Theories

Question 1

Which of the following did not influence developmental and life course theories?

A) The criminal career paradigm
B) Developmental criminology
C) The risk factor/prevention paradigm
D) The life course perspective
E) None of the above

Answer 1

E

Question 2

Developmental and life course theories examine:

A) the onset, maintenance, and desistance of criminal behavior.
B) how celerity, certainty, and severity affect criminal behavior.
C) how motivated offenders, suitable targets, and the absence of capable guardians result in crime.
D) how the emergence of law and activities of the criminal justice system perpetuate the crime problem.
E) how the phases of the moon affect crime.

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Which of the following is true about the assumptions made by developmental and life course theories?

A) They believe that interactions between individuals and their environments produce motivation for behavior.
B) They vary in their commitment to free will.
C) They embrace soft determinism or indeterminism.
D) They believe that humans shape and are shaped by their environments.
E) All of the above.

Answer 3

E

Question 4

Developmental and life course theories seek to explain:

A) chronic or persistent offenders.
B) within-individual changes in criminal behavior.
C) desistance from criminal behavior.
D) all of the above.
E) none of the above.

Question 5

Farrington's integrated cognitive antisocial potential theory suggests that:

A) the majority of offenders commit crime from the age of 15 to 24 and then desist rapidly; a small minority of offenders commit crime throughout their lives.
B) people desist from crime because of important life events (e.g., getting married, having a child, getting a good job) and the increased social connections that come with them.
C) delinquent youth typically damage the attachments they have to their parents and prosocial peers, which frees them up to associate and become attached to delinquent peers.
D) attachments to delinquent role models set one on a trajectory to interact with delinquent peers, eventually leading to a criminal lifestyle.
E) criminal predispositions (e.g., impulsivity, low IQ, lack of empathy, antisocial models, weak social attachments, and economic problems) and situational variables (e.g., opportunity, anger, boredom) interact with each other to produce criminal behavior.

Question 6

Paul is 38 and has been a heroin junkie since the age of 17. To support his habit, he commits minor burglaries and robberies; he has been caught and convicted five times. Paul wants to quit using drugs and committing crime, but he has been unable to find a good job because of his previous convictions. He has also had difficulty forming healthy relationships because of his lifestyle. According to Moffitt's developmental taxonomy, what could be said of Paul?

A) He is a life course persistent offender.
B) He is an adolescent limited offender.
C) Paul is experiencing the phenomenon of "cumulative continuity."
D) Both a and c
E) Both b and c

Question 7

Sampson and Laub's theory of cumulative disadvantage:

A) suggests that attachments develop in response to key life events like getting married and having kids.
B) claims that labeling can limit opportunities for employment and interpersonal relationships and that this creates a situation in which the offender is free to commit more crime because there is little to lose.
C) argues that chronic offenders are often abused as children and grow up in criminogenic environments.
D) identifies two types of offenders: adolescent-limited and life course persistent.
E) proposes that poverty-stricken communities suffer from social disorganization and this causes a higher percentage of the residents to become serious criminals.

Question 8

Wikstrom's situational action theory:

A) suggests that self-control and morality are important to understanding criminal propensity.
B) argues that provocations and temptations are important to consider when explaining criminal behavior.
C) identifies individual, situational, settings-based, and social mechanisms that interact to produce criminal behavior.
D) all of the above.
E) none of the above.

Question 9

How did longitudinal research lead to the development of developmental and life course theories?

Question 10

Explain the age-crime curve and what it suggests about patterns of offending.

Question 11

What are some of the assumptions made by developmental and life course theorists, and what kind of crimes do these theories attempt to explain?

Question 12

Describe some practical approaches and programs suggested by developmental and life course theorists.

Question 13

What are some of the critiques leveled against developmental and life course theories?