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Developmental and Life-Course Theories of Crime and Deviance

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Handbook on Crime and Deviance

Part of the book series: Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research ((HSSR))

Abstract

Developmental and life-course theories of crime and deviance seek to provide explanations of stability and change in behavior over the lifespan. This chapter reviews seven of the most well-known and longest-standing developmental and life-course theories of crime and deviance: dual taxonomy theory, general age-graded theory, integrated cognitive antisocial potential theory, interactional theory, developmental pathways model, social development model, and situational action theory. These theories move beyond accounts of between-individual differences in offending to include accounts of within-individual differences over time. As a collection, developmental and life-course theories have led to numerous innovations in theorizing by emphasizing age-graded behavioral causes and consequences, reciprocal influences, person-environment interactions, distinct etiologies for offender types, and alternative views of intervention success, among several other advances. Following a review of each theory’s key constructs and predictions, as well as select studies and policy implications, the chapter concludes by noting where developmental and life-course theorizing leaves criminology in the larger disciplinary pursuit of developing a unifying theoretical statement.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    As discussed by Farrington (2005a), these include the rise, peak, and fall of offending (i.e., age-crime curve), where the typical onset period occurs during late childhood/early adolescence and the typical desistance period spans the twenties. Individuals who start the earliest tend to be the most persistent. A small number of chronic offenders commit a disproportionate number of offenses. Up until roughly the age of 20, offenses become more diversified, tend to be committed with others, and have broader motivational bases; in contrast, after about 20, offenses become more specialized and tend to be committed alone more often and for utilitarian reasons. Offenses tend to exhibit developmental sequencing, where more minor offenses come before more serious ones. Generally speaking, crime is a subset of broader antisocial behavior and, keeping in mind the developmental differences noted above, offenders tend to be more versatile as compared to specialized, particularly when considering their behavior over longer periods of time (for a review, see Farrington, 2005a).

  2. 2.

    Consistent with these categorizations, the role of self-control has recently been considered in a life-course context (see Hay & Meldrum, 2015); and, labeling explains the developmental progression from primary to second deviance (Lemert, 1951; Paternoster & Iovanni 1989) and some work has situated labeling theory within an intergenerational context (Besemer et al., 2017; Hagan & Palloni, 1990).

  3. 3.

    Some other prominent developmental and life-course theories of offending not reviewed here include: Le Blanc’s (1997, 2005) integrative multilayered control theory and Lahey and Waldman’s (2005) developmental propensity theory.

  4. 4.

    The social development model is also considered a blending of social control (Hirschi, 1969), social learning theory (Bandura, 1977) and differential association (Sutherland, 1947) theories.

  5. 5.

    Agnew (2011) has recently considered theoretical assumptions of human nature and society in detail to help move the discipline “toward a unified criminology”.

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  1. Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Jeffrey T. Ward

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  1. Jeffrey T. Ward
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Criminology & Law, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Marvin D. Krohn

  2. Department of Criminal Justice, Radford University, Radford, VA, USA

    Nicole Hendrix

  3. School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany, Albany, NY, USA

    Gina Penly Hall

  4. School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany, Albany, NY, USA

    Alan J. Lizotte

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Ward, J.T. (2019). Developmental and Life-Course Theories of Crime and Deviance. In: Krohn, M., Hendrix, N., Penly Hall, G., Lizotte, A. (eds) Handbook on Crime and Deviance. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20779-3_15

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