Social factors and offending

Risk factors vs. Cause…

• Risk factors- those things associated with and/or predictive of later offending.

• Causal relationships- how does a risk factor cause the offending (and its development).

• Importance of theory

  • Easy to describe research findings.

  • Role of psychology to explain research findings.

What is cross-sectional research?

• Looks for differences between offenders and non-offenders or between different groups of offenders.

• Data collected at just one time point.

What is Longitudinal research?

• Follows individuals over a period time, multiple data collection points.

             Identify predictors/risk factors

• Developmental sequences.

• Associations between key development times/sequences and offending.

What is the Cambridge study?

• The Cambridge Study of Delinquent Development

• Longitudinal study started in 1961

• N = 411 boys from inner London borough

• First interviews at 8 years

• Interviewed at age 10, 14, 18, 21, 25, 32 and 48 years

• Criminal records followed up to 61 years

• Still ongoing…

Very low attrition rate: 48 years, n= 394 and interviews with n=365

Information from boys, parents and teachers.

Data on convictions from official records and self-reports.

Data on other life ‘outcomes’

What is the Cambridge study finings 1?

• About 20% of participants were convicted as juveniles; by 25 years, around 33% convicted

• Childhood predictors of later offending:

  • Poor parental child-rearing

  • Parental conflict/disrupted families

  • Family criminality

  • Large family

  • Socioeconomic deprivation

What is the Cambridge study findings 2?

• Childhood predictors of later offending:

  • Poor academic attainment/performance

  • Antisocial childhood behaviour.

  • Hyperactivity, impulsivity and attention deficits.

    • Poor concentration, restlessness, daring and psychomotor impulsivity. 

 

What are predictors of offending?

• Child-rearing/parenting

• Discipline 

• Parenting and offending 

• Child abuse and neglect 

What are the two approaches of explaing child-rearing/parenting?

Child-rearing/parenting styles

• Behaviour that set the contect of parent- child interactions

Dimensions of parenting

• Different aspects of parenting

What are the Child-rearing/ parenting styles?

• Authoritarian: Do as I say

  • Value obedience & favour punitive punishment

• Authoritative: Do as I ask

  • Use inductive style of discipline

• Permissive: Do what you want

  • Prefer to allow children freedom of expression

• Rejecting-neglectful: I don’t care what you do

  • Children are neglected

What are the outcomes of different child-rearing/ parenting styles?

• Authoritarian: Low social competence, low self-esteem, low academic attainment, unhappy, unfriendly.

• Authoritative: Socially competent, self-assured, popular, low antisocial behaviour, low drug use.

• Permissive: Impulsive, low academic attainment, more antisocial behaviour, more drug use,

• Rejecting-neglectful: Low social competence, low academic attainment, depression, antisocial behaviour, drug use.

What are the different dimensions of child-rearing/ parenting dimensions?

Control and support

Control: behaviours to control a child’s behaviour

Support: behaviours that make a child feel accepted

What is Control discipline?

• Relaxed, erratic and harsh discipline all associated with later delinquency

Relaxed discipline – lack of internalised constraints on behaviour

• Inconsistent discipline – less likely to be perceived as fair- different parents will have different styles and can lead to confusion and inconsistent

• Harsh discipline – coercive family interactions due to repeated reprimands and punitive punishment. Negative punishment- child may react and can lead to a negative cycle.

• Effective discipline – inductive discipline, parents explaining why behaviour is wrong- key Is explanations of why behaviour is wrong. If parents explain why behaviour is wrong, then behaviour is less likely to be repeated.

What will a closer look at discipline explain?

• As discipline increases in severity, its impact on behaviour increases exponentially.

• As discipline get harder behaviour becomes more negative. As disioine gets more sever leads to excalted anti-social behaviour.

x axis = severity of discipline

y axis = level of antisocial behaviour

• Context of wider parent-child relationship in which discipline is delivered

  • Harsh discipline and cold/rejecting parent-child relationship- is more damaging to behaviour compared to a warm parent-child relationship.

  • Harsh discipline and warm parent-child relationship

What is Control supervision?

Whether we know where the child is and what they are doing.

• Knowledge of child’s behaviour and whereabouts

• Setting of rules and ensuring they are adhered to

Direct vs. indirect supervision

Direct- when younger know where they are school, clubs etc.

• Source of knowledge about what child is doing

indirect- internalise behavioural constraints from when they are younger- how this links to parent child relationship, Active monitoring, ask child for information, child disclosure

• Poor supervision is associated with delinquency – why might this be?

• Poor supervision- no internalisation of constraints can link to negative behaviour

What is the effect of parental/carer warmth?

• Warm parent/carer-child interactions are needed for strong attachment

• Weak/ cold parent/ child is linked to social offending and negative behavioural outcomes.

• Savage (2014) review reported that weak attachments to parents/carers are associated with higher levels of offending and violence

• Emotionally cold and rejecting parenting is associated with offending

What does parenting and offending show?

• Meta-analysis by Pinquart (2017)

  • All dimensions of parenting are associated with delinquency/offending-

  • Strongest Effect Size for harsh control and psychological control an discipline elements

  • Strong Effect Size  for authoritarian, permissive and neglectful parenting on offending

  • parental monitoring- supervision

  • Small Effect Size for parental warmth, behavioural control, autonomy granting (giving a child autonomy rather than telling them what to do) and authoritative parenting style

• Meta-analysis also looked at a range of moderator variables:

  • Gender differences

  • Parent-child gender dyads

  • Child age

How is child abuse and neglect a predictor?

• Physical abuse, mental abuse and neglect

• Victims of abuse are more likely to:

  • Have a criminal record

  • Be convicted of non-violent offences

  • Be convicted of violent offences

What did Maxfield and Widom (1996) find about child abuse and neglect?

• N = 908 cases of child abuse or neglect from court records.

• N = 667 comparison group matched on dob, race, sex and social class.

• Follow-up data collected 22-26 years later.

• Victims of abuse/neglect (49%) more likely to have been arrested than comparison group (38%).

• Victims of abuse/neglect (18%) more likely to have been arrested for violence than comparison group (14%).

Child maltreatment under 12 years significantly predicted self-reported violence at 14-18 years.

Children physically abused up to 11 years had elevated risk of becoming a violent offender.

Review concluded that physical abuse as a child predicts both later violent and non-violent offending.

What was Milaniak & Widom (2015) follow up?

-   Victims of abuse/neglect more likely than comparison group:

• Arrested for and/or self-reported criminal violence

• Arrested for and/or self-reported child abuse perpetration

• Self-report intimate partner violenc

• Victims of abuse/neglect (32.5%) higher rates of committing violence in more than one domain than comparison group (22.7%)

What might explain/account for the association between child abuse and later violet behaviour?

• changes in an individuals cognitive style

• changes in the environment

What are examples of changes in individuals cognitive style?

o   Poor coping styles and problem-solving skills

o   Social information processing patterns

o   Emotional desensitisation to pain.

o   Learn that violence is a way to get what they want.

What are examples of changes in the environment?

o   Changes in family environment that have negative behavioural effects (being places in care).

o   Victims become labelled.

What are research issues when investigating child abuse?

• Identification of cases – how/from where?

  • Official records

  • Self-report

  • Reports from others (who?) teachers

• Under-reporting

• Does this mean only the most severe cases used in research? Court records etc only serious…

• Some of the research on the effect of harsh discipline can be relevant to looking at physical child abuse

What are family factors that can influence offending?

Family structure

‘Disrupted’ family.

Family antisocial/offending behaviour.

Family size

What are ‘Disrupted’ families?

Established link between parental divorce/separation and later delinquency/offending

Single parenthood associated with delinquency/offending

However, what is the key issue – the separation of the parents or what happens in the lead up to/after parental separation.

What is the effect of parental conflict rather than seperatuion itself?

Why? What is it about parental conflict that can cause poor outcomes?

‘Spillover’ of emotion leads to disrupted child-rearing practices

How might this impact on child-rearing? Parents emotions are with the separation that supervision drops off.

Impact on children’s cognitions and emotions

• Cognitions – attributions about parental conflict (cause, implications, consequences)

• Emotions – disruption of emotional attachments

What are the effects of antisocial and criminal family members?

Farrington, Barnes, and Lambert (1996) – 6% of families accounted for half of convictions (UK)

Farrington et al. (2001) – less than 10% of families accounted for over 40% of arrests (US)

Influence of older siblings’ behaviour

• Modelling of antisocial behaviour and failure to provide models of pro-social behaviour.

• Criminal parents may have less effective/provide disrupted child rearing skills.

• Young siblings’ model older siblings or may be coerced to participate by older siblings

• Impact of shared environmental stressors.

• Genetic factors, with predisposition to aggressive behaviour (predisposition to impulsivity)

• ‘Assortative mating’- evolutionary psychology mating

• Labelling of criminal families by police.

How does family size affect offending?

Some research shows that delinquency/offending is associated with larger families.

Each child receives less parental time and supervision

Interaction and emotional involvement is smaller families is more intense.

Delinquency is learned through association with delinquent siblings,

How can peer influences affect offending?

Having delinquent/antisocial friends as an adolescent is associated with delinquency.

• Adolescents who have close friends who are delinquent are more likely to behave delinquently.

• Delinquents are more likely than non-delinquents to have delinquent friends.

How can peer influenc ebe explained?

1.        Does having antisocial peers encourage others to be antisocial/offend?

Or

2.        Do antisocial adolescents ‘stick together’ co-offending?

 

Does having antisocial peers encourage others to be antisocial/offend?

• Social learning theory/modelling. Copied by people who aren’t offending behaviour is being model. More and more opportunities to model behaviour.

• Increased contact with delinquent peers allows more change to model delinquent attitudes and behaviour.

• Impact of respected role models within peer group.

 

Do antisocial adolescents stick together?

• General theory of crime (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990).

• Lack of individual self-control as main cause of crime and so young people with poor self-control end up together, rather than learning of delinquent behaviours from peers.

 

What are gangs?

• Relatively durable and predominately street-based group.

• Perceive themselves (and perceived by others) as a distinct group.

• Engage in criminal activity and violence.

• Lay claim over territory.

• Have some form of identifying structural feature, hierarchy.

• In conflict with other, similar groups.

 

How do gangs influence offending? 

• Gangs provide opportunities for contact with delinquent/violent peers – increased likelihood of becoming delinquents and/or likelihood of becoming more delinquent.

• Research shows that gang membership predicts delinquency beyond just associating with delinquent peers.

What are the three models have been proposed to explain the relationships between gangs and offeneding?

Selection

o   Gangs recruit delinquent members, people who are similar and already offenders

Social facilitation

o   Gangs provide opportunities for adolescents to become delinquent, facilitating people who aren’t offending to start.

Enhancement

o   Gangs recruit adolescents who are the verge of being delinquent and escalate this behaviour. Excellating behaviour,

What are predictions of selection?

Gangs recruit delinquent individuals.

Individuals who are delinquent regardless of gang membership.

Gang members higher than non-gang members for rates of delinquency.

Individuals will have same rate of delinquency before, during and after gang membership.

Gang not responsible for members’ delinquency.

What are predictions of social facilitations?

Gangs provide opportunities for adolescents to become delinquent.

Gang members higher rates of delinquency than non-gang members only during membership.

Individuals only delinquent when a gang member.

Gang responsible for delinquency.

What are predictions of enhancement?

-              Gangs recruit adolescents who are delinquent and escalate this behaviour.

-              Gang members higher than non-gang members for delinquency.

-              Individuals who are/have been in a gang have higher delinquency when in gang than before or after (but still delinquency).

Can be argued that this combines the selection and facilitation processes.

What did Thornberry study about gangs and offending?

N = 708 male adolescents, US

Longitudinal design, 3 data collection points

Self-reported gang membership, delinquency and drug use at each time

Participants categorised as gang members at Time 1 only; Time 2 only; Time 3 only; Time 1 & Time 2; Time 2 & Time 3; Time 1, Time 2 and Time 3

-              Allowed for identification of delinquency before, during and after gang membership

 

Examined between group differences (gang vs. gang members)

Examined within group differences over time

Also consider transient gang members (member at one point only) vs. stable gang members (member at 2 or more points) 

What are Transient gang members?

(only members at one point) results most consistent with social facilitation model

-              Delinquency highest when member of a gang.

-              When not a gang member, level of delinquency same as non-gang members.

what are Stable gang members?

result consistent with a combination of social facilitation and enhancement models

-              Delinquency consistency high compared to non-gang members.

-              For those who were members at 2 (rather than 3) time points – some evidence that delinquency was higher than when not in a gang.

What are issues in gang research?

Gangs often defined by violence of members, but violence then ‘explained’ by the gang.

If gangs are known by police, maybe their violence is more noticeable – labelling.

Is a crime by a gang member ‘gang-related’ or is it due to individual motivation?

 

How do school factors influence offending?

o   Disengagement and early drop-out of school

o   Academic ability and academic attainment

What is disengagement from school?

• Disengagement from school can be captured through various indices – school bonding, school failure, attachment to schools, grades, truancy.

• School disengagement is associated with problem behaviours in school, truancy, drug use and offending during adolescence.

• Longitudinal research shows that school disengagement also predicts short-term outcomes such as drug use, violence and offending.

• Longer term effects of school disengagement also support that it is associated with offending and violence.

• School disengagement is often followed by early drop-out from school.

What did Henry, knight and Thornberrry 2012 find about disengagement?

Longitudinal study, N = 911 boys, US

School disengagement at 14 years

Followed up at 15-16 years (mid-adolescence), 17-18 years (late adolescence) and 21-23 years (early adulthood)

Follow-up outcomes data: self-reported serious criminal violent and property offending, official arrests, and self-reported problem alcohol and drug use

• School disengagement was associated with drop-out from school

• For all outcomes, higher school disengagement was associated with poor outcomes at all three time points (mid and late adolescence and early adulthood)

• For early adult outcomes, school drop-out mediated the relationship between school disengagement and self-reported offending, official arrests and self-reported drug and alcohol use

What did Rocques et al 2017 find about Traunancy and offending?

-      Longitudinal study, N = 911 boys, UK

-      Truancy at 12-14 years

-      Follow-up outcomes: violent/non-violent convictions, self-reported offending, fights, problem drinking

-      Truancy associated with violent & non-violent convictions, self-reported offending, fights and problem drinking

What is the link between parents, school and delinquency find about offending?

-      Lack of parental support and encouragement

-      Home where books and learning not valued

-      Lack of financial resources to equip children for education

What can schools do to help?

-      Interventions to reduce school disengagement and dropout

-      Interventions with parents to increase their engagement with school and their children’s education

-      Investment in schools to enhance quality of leadership and teaching

 

What are protective factors of offending?

-              Various family, peer and school risk factors

BUT

-              Important to remember that the majority of children who experience these do not go on to offend

o   Why?

o   What seems to ‘protect’ them from poor outcomes?

-              Protective factors predict low likelihood of poor outcomes

o   Direct protective factors

o   Buffering protective factors

-              Direct protective factors can simply be the opposite of risk factors

-              Buffering protective factors predict low likelihood of poor outcomes when there are risk factors present (i.e. the attenuate the impact of risk factors).

 

What are protective factors: direct?

Direct protective factors include:

o   Positive parenting

o   Good supervision

o   Positive attitudes to school

o   Low levels of impulsive

What are protective factors:bufffering?

Buffering protective factors:

o   Often the same as direct protective factors but act in a different way

o   Strong emotional bond with non-family member might offset less effective parenting

o   Strong parent relationship might offset socioeconomic deprivation

What is buffering protective factor example?

-      Risk factor (x axis): parental discipline

-      Outcome (y axis): antisocial behaviour

-      Protective factor: strong emotional bond with a non-family member (Yes/No)

What is susceptibility?

Often an assumption that the environment impacts on all children in the same way

However, the impact of the environment might be affected by moderator variables

o   Relationship: X affects Y

o   Moderator is a variable that explained when X affects Y

What is differential suseptibility?

Some characteristics of a child makes them more or less susceptible to effects of a risk factor

o   In a negative environment ‘at risk’/susceptible children do worse than other children

o   In a positive environment ‘at risk’/susceptible children do better than other children

o   In a normal environment ‘at risk’/susceptible children do almost as well as other children

o   Non-susceptible children develop normally regardless of environment they experience