Ch. 13: Developmental/Life-Course Perspectives on Criminality

______ refers to when the criminal career of an individual ends.

Desistance

Studies using a life-course perspective show that most individuals who get arrested ______.

are never arrested again

The ______ is the unit of analysis for developmental theories.

individual

The estimate of lambda is a statistic of average ______ of offending.

frequency

According to developmental theories, the pattern of repeat offending usually proceeds in which order?

1. Status offenses

2. petty crimes

3. Violent crimes

______ theories allow researchers to examine individual criminal trajectories.

Developmental

Gottfredson and Hirschi’s general theory of crime asserts that social controls are established ______.

in the first years of life

The key assumption of the general theory of crime is that all deviance is attributable to ______.

low self-control.

The ______ theory of crime proposes that individuals are born predisposed toward selfishness and that only effective child-rearing and socialization can create self-control.

general

Low-self-control theory assumes that offending varies over the life course due to development of increased self-control.

false

Life events deemed important in altering trends in behavior are known as ______.

transitions

______ are general longitudinal patterns of behavior.

Trajectory theories

Life-course persistent offenders are estimated to account for the majority of people who offend in society.

false

______ distinguishes two types of people who offend: life-course persistent and adolescence-limited.

Moffitt’s developmental taxonomy

In Thornberry’s model, an outcome (e.g., becoming friends with other people who offend) can also be a ______.

predictive variable

Thornberry’s model is one of the simplest models offered for explaining offending over the life course.

false

Which theory was the first to emphasize reciprocal effects in the causal modeling of the theoretical framework?

Thornberry’s interactional theory

One possible policy implication of developmental theories would be assigning special caseworkers for high-risk pregnancies.

True

According to developmental theory, the most significant and effective interventions can occur during which stages of life?

prenatal

Universal health care specifically for people at prime offending age is a major policy implication of developmental theories of crime.

false