Etiological Factors of Crime and Delinquency

Etiological Factors

Social Poverty

• Definition: Spending more than $75\%$ of household income on necessities.

• Canada: Affects $10\%$ of families (StatsCan, 2022).

• Key Point: A prominent risk factor for violence, regardless of gender.

Environmental Challenges

• Family disruption: Structural changes within the family unit.

• Unsafe living conditions: Exposure to crime and unsanitary environments.

• Unemployment: Lack of stable employment opportunities.

• Poor nutrition: Inadequate access to healthy food.

• Social isolation/limited support systems: Absence of a strong social network; e.g., lack of reliable childcare for other children.

Poverty & Crime

Youth living in poverty are more likely to:

• Receive low-quality education.

• Drop out of high school.

• Carry a firearm (U.S.) or other weapon (Canada).

• Be unemployed.

• Be victimized or witness violent events.

Parenting Under Poverty

Two problematic parenting patterns often emerge in conditions of poverty:

• Authoritarian parenting: Characterized by excessive power assertion.

• Low parental monitoring: Insufficient supervision of children.

Police Disparity

• Police disproportionately target delinquents from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds compared to those from middle/upper classes.

• Reasoning: Assault (sexual), drug use, and theft occur across ALL socioeconomic levels, suggesting that the targeting is not solely based on the prevalence of crime within groups.

Preschool Care (Daycare)

• Impact of time spent in daycare: The more time a child under age $5$ spends in daycare, the:

  • Higher their rates of aggression by age $12$.

  • Worse they are at self-regulation.

• Challenge for child-care workers: Dealing with aggressive toddlers, often due to a lack of proper training, which can influence other children to behave similarly.

• Solution: High-quality daycare:

  • Appropriate childcare worker-to-child ratio.

  • Proper discipline techniques.

  • Social skills training integrated into the curriculum.

Peer Rejection & Social Exclusion

Critical Timing

• Key Period: Elementary school years.

• Why it's critical (Predictive Power): Peer rejection experienced in $1^{st}$ or $2^{nd}$ grade significantly predicts antisocial behavior in $4^{th}$ grade.

Link to Crime

• Rejected peers often have fewer social and interpersonal skills due to limited opportunities to practice these skills.

• This limitation can lead to the amplification of antisocial traits.

• Real-life example: The ADHD Summer Camp Study, which highlighted the significant impact of social dynamics.

Why Social Skills Matter

Social skills enable individuals to:

• Communicate their intentions and needs effectively to others.

• Examples of crucial social skills:

  • Emotional awareness.

  • Cooperation.

  • Problem-solving.

  • Empathy.

  • Self-control.

School Failure

Link to Delinquency

• Early school failure is strongly linked to delinquency.

• Antisocial behavior doubles in boys who fail a grade in elementary school.

• Grade failure typically stems from poor reading skills.

• Impact: Poor reading skills are associated with an increased arrest risk, while strong reading skills act as a protective factor for boys, decreasing their risk of arrest.

Link to Criminal Behavior

School failure contributes to delinquent/criminal behavior by leading to:

• A dislike of school.

• Problems with peers.

• Less likelihood of becoming employed during young adulthood.

• An inability to foresee that criminal behavior will have negative consequences.

Firearms

Key Aspects

1. Provides distance: Firearms create physical distance between the offender and the victim.

2. Availability:

   • Homicide rates in countries globally are strongly correlated with the availability of handguns.

   • The higher the gun ownership in a given U.S. state, the higher the homicide rate.

   • Comparison: England has $1/16^{th}$ the homicide rate of the U.S.

   • Vancouver vs. Seattle Case Study:

     • Similarities: Population (ethnicity, level of education), similar media exposure (movies/TV shows), same economic level, comparable climate.

     • Difference: Seattle has significantly more gun availability, resulting in a homicide rate $4\times$ higher than Vancouver.

Weapons Effect

• Experiment findings: The mere presence of guns, compared to other objects like rackets, increases aggressive responses.

• Major factor in school shootings:

  • This effect is a significant contributor to tragedies such as Columbine, Parkland, Virginia Tech, Dawson College, and Uvalde, Texas.

  • Weapon accessibility directly enables these tragic events.