Psychology and Law in a Changing World

New Trends in Theory, Practice and Research

Lara Bagnoli, Giovanni B. Traverso

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134699650
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Law Theory & Practice
• Index: Law

Criminal psychology, and its relationship to the practice of law, has become a topic of major significance over the last three decades. Psychologists play a key role in modern criminal investigation and are central to crime reduction measures such as offender profiling, delinquency prevention and tackling fear of crime. Contributors from North America, Europe and Australia examine this link, both adding to and drawing upon the pool of recent theory construction and empirical work in the following areas:
* causes and prevention of offending
* studies of crime and offenders
* the victim's perspective
* witnesses and testimony
* studies of legal processes.
These issues are studied from a 'local' perspective that recognises not only the need for cross-national comparative research, but also the generation of a corpus of scientific knowledge more representative of the complexity of criminal and legal investigation today.

PART 1

CAUSES AND PREVENTION OF OFFENDING

Chapter 1

THE NEED FOR A COORDINATED PROGRAM OE CROSS NATIONAL COMPARATIVE LONGITUDINAL RESEARCH

David P. Farrington

KEY ISSUES IN CRIMINOLOGY

The key issues that I will address fall into three categories. First, there are questions of descriptive epidemiology, such as: how do criminal careers develop over time? Second, there are causal questions, such as: what are the most important causes or risk factors for offending? Third, there are intervention questions, such as: what are the best interventions to prevent or reduce offending? In each of these categories, I will first discuss key questions that need to be addressed. Then I will discuss what we know, what we need to know, and how we can find this out. Finally, I will recommend an ambitious coordinated program of cross-national comparative longitudinal research.

CRIMINAL CAREERS

Key questions about criminal careers include the following:

• What proportion of the population commits offenses at different ages? What is the prevalence of offending?

This and other questions can also be asked about different populations (e.g. males versus females) and different types of offenses.

• What are the characteristics of offenders compared with non-offenders at different ages?

• When does offending start? What is the age of onset?

• When does offending stop? What is the age of desistance?

• How long do criminal careers last? What is their duration?

• How frequently do people commit offenses during their criminal careers?

• How far is there escalation or de-escalation in the seriousness of offending during criminal careers?

• How far is there specialization or versatility in offending?

• How far is there continuity or stability in offending over time?

• How far are there different behavioral manifestations of the same underlying construct (e.g. an antisocial personality) at different ages?

• How far are criminal careers types of more general antisocial careers?

• How far are there developmental sequences, pathways or progressions from one type of offending to another, or from childhood antisocial behavior to offending?

• How far can we predict the later criminal career from the criminal career so far?

• How are different criminal career features (e.g. age of onset, duration, frequency of offending) inter-related?

Conclusions about criminal careers depend on methods of measurement (e.g. official records or self-reports) and types of offenses. One of the early surprising findings was the high prevalence of offending. For example, in the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development, which is a prospective longitudinal survey of 400 London males, 40% were convicted up to age 40 (Farrington, 1995b; Farrington et al., 1998). According to their self-reports, 96% had committed an offense that could have led to conviction up to age 32. However, even according to self-reports, only a minority had committed more serious offenses such as burglary (14%) and motor vehicle theft (15%; Farrington, 1989).

According to official records, offending often begins by age fourteen, has a peak prevalence in the teenage years (age 15–19) and then declines after age twenty (Farrington, 1986). In the Cambridge Study, the peak age of increase in the prevalence of offending by Study males was about fourteen, while the peak age of decrease was about twenty-three. However, some criminal careers can persist over many years and others do not begin until late in life. For example, a quarter of convicted fathers in the Cambridge Study were not convicted until after age 35, and the average duration of their criminal careers was 16 years (for fathers committing more than one offense; see Farrington et al., 1998).

A small fraction of the population (the “chronic offenders”) account for a substantial fraction of all offenses. In the Cambridge Study, about 6% of the males accounted for about half of all the convictions up to age 40 (Farrington et al., 1998). Also, about 6% of the families accounted for half of all the convictions of all family members (Farrington et al., 1996). Most offenses under age seventeen were committed with others, but co-offending decreased steadily with age (Reiss & Farrington, 1991).

There is relative stability in offending, since the worst offenders at one age tend also to be the worst offenders at other ages. In the Cambridge Study, three-quarters of those convicted as juveniles at age 10–16 were also convicted at age 17–24, compared with only 16% of the remainder (Farrington, 1992). There was also significant continuity in self-reported offending (Farrington, 1989). However, there were changes in absolute levels of offending over time. For example, the prevalence of marijuana use decreased significantly between ages 18 and 32 (from 29% to 19%), but there was a significant correlation between use at age 18 and use at age 32 (Farrington, 1990).

Offending is predominantly versatile rather than specialized, particularly at younger ages. In the Cambridge Study, the violent offenders committed an average of 1.7 violent offenses each up to age 32, but an average of 5.3 non-violent offences each (Farrington, 1991b). Violent offenses seemed to occur almost at random in criminal careers. Also, there is versatility in antisocial behavior generally, suggesting that offending is one element of a syndrome of antisocial behavior that arises in childhood and persists into adulthood (Farrington, 1991a). Offenders tend to be multiple problem youths.

Many other important facts are known about criminal careers, but I do not have space to review them here (see Farrington, 1997c). Instead, I will move on to what we need to know about criminal careers. Most previous criminal career research has been based on official records of arrests or convictions. More efforts are needed to investigate criminal career questions using repeated self-reports in prospective longitudinal surveys. Ideally, self-report information is needed about the relative timing of offenses. Self-reports would make it possible to study the probability of a (self-reported) offense leading to a conviction, and the characteristics of people with a high likelihood of committing undetected offenses (compared to others who have a high likelihood of being caught). Self-reports would also make it more possible to study criminal career issues for specific types of offenses.

Most prior criminal career research treats offenders as homogeneous, but different types of people may have different types of careers. For example, Moffitt (1993) distinguished between “adolescence-limited” and “life-course-persistent” offenders. Research is needed on what are the most useful typologies of offenders, and on their different developmental pathways to criminal careers. Also, more research is needed on female criminal careers; existing studies focus primarily on males.

An important research priority is to investigate stepping stones on developmental pathways leading to serious or chronic offending, to try to determine optimal opportunities for intervention (when there is some predictability but not too much stabilization). More research is also needed on predicting future criminal careers. It is also important to study failures in prediction, for example why some juvenile offenders do not become adult offenders (Farrington & Hawkins, 1991). This type of research can help to identify protective factors that might form the basis of interventions.

In the past, there has been little contact between developmental and situational researchers (Farrington, 1995a). More criminal career research is needed regarding situational factors and circumstances influencing criminal acts, so that it is possible to specify not only how and why criminal potential develops over time but also how and why the potential becomes the actuality of criminal acts. Similarly, more criminal career research is needed that incorporates biological factors (Farrington, 1997d) and community influences (Farrington, 1993a). Another important research priority is quantifying the total burden on society of chronic offenders, specifying their problems in different areas of life (e.g. education, employment, sexual, mental and physical health). This information is especially needed in assessing the costs and benefits of prevention and intervention programs.

CAUSES AND RISK FACTORS

Key questions about causes and risk factors include the following:

• What are the main causes of offending? Why do people commit offenses at different ages?

• What are the main risk factors for offending at different ages?

It is easier to establish risk factors (factors that predict an increased probability of offending) than causes. It is not easy to determine which risk factors have causal effects. Many researchers are doubtful about the value of asking people direct questions about why they committed offenses (Farrington, 1993b).

• What is the relative importance of different risk factors? How far do risk factors have independent, interactive or sequential effects on offending? For example, do communities influence families, and families influence children, so that communities have only indirect effects on offending?

• What are the main protective factors for offending at different ages?

• How well, and how early, can offending be predicted?

• What are the main causes or risk factors for different criminal career features such as onset, persistence, escalation, de-escalation and desis tance?

Since they occur at different ages, the causes of some features are likely to be different from the causes of others.

• What are the effects of life events (such as getting married, getting divorced, leaving home, parental death, parental divorce) on the course of development of offending? Are there critical periods when effects of specific life events are greatest?

• What are the most useful theories for explaining onset, persistence, escalation, de-escalation, desistance, and the time course of criminal careers generally?

A great deal is known about the main risk factors or predictors of offending, from prospective longitudinal surveys in different countries (Farrington, 1996a, 1997c). Because of my interest in linking knowledge about risk factors and interventions, I will focus on risk factors that can be changed, rather than fixed risk factors such as gender. I will also focus on risk factors that might be explanatory or causal, rather than risk factors that might be merely symptoms of an underlying antisocial personality (e.g., bullying, heavy drinking, drug use).

Among the most important risk factors are:

• Hyperactivity-impulsiveness-attention deficit

• Low intelligence or attainment

• Convicted parents or siblings

• Poor parental supervision, harsh or erratic discipline

• Parental conflict, separation or divorce

• Low family income, poor housing

• Large family size

• Delinquent friends

• High delinquency rate school

• High crime neighbourhood

While these risk factors are well-established, there is little hard evidence about which of them are truly causal. The most compelling evidence of causality could be obtained in prevention or intervention experiments, but most such experiments are designed to test a technology rather than a theory. Interventions are often heterogeneous, including for example individual skills training, parent training and teacher training (Hawkins et al., 1991), because multi-modal interventions are more likely to be successful (Wasserman & Miller, 1998). However, unimodal interventions focussing on a single factor, such as poor parental supervision, could be useful in establishing causality.

After experiments, the next most convincing method of establishing causes is through quasi-experimental, within-individual analyses in which each individual is followed up before and after life events (Farrington, 1988). Because the same individuals are studied, many extraneous variables are held constant. In the Cambridge Study, the effects of unemployment on offending were established by comparing a person’s offending during unemployment periods with the same person’s offending during employment periods (Farrington et al., 1986b).

Crimes of dishonesty were more frequent during periods of unemployment. The effects of getting married and getting divorced were established by comparing a person’s offending before and after these life events (Farrington & West, 1995). Offending decreased after getting married and increased after getting divorced. More analyses of this type are needed.

While a great deal is known about risk factors for offending in general, little is known about risk factors for different criminal career features such as onset, persistence, escalation, de-escalation and desistance...

Table of contents

• Front cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction Psychology and Law at the End of the Century
• Part 1 Causes and Prevention of Offending
• Part 2 Studies of Crime and Offenders
• Part 3 Victim Issues
• Part 4 Testimony and Witness Issues
• Part 5 Studies of Legal Processes
• Index