Why Most Offending Occurs in Adolescence and Subsidies in Early Adulthood - Essay Example

Explain why most offending occurs in adolescence and subsides in early adulthood Abstract Age related crime studies show people at younger ages tend to commit more number of crimes and more serious crimes than at older ages when crime switching takes place due to progressive incapacitation. As they grow older, they also tend to specialize in particular crimes. Social learning theory of Bandura which says that individual’s behavior is influenced by environment and environment in turn is influenced by the situation can be applied to validate the findings of age related crimes. This paper seeks to correlate age to criminal conduct by applying an appropriate psychological theory. Crime rates are generally greater in adolescent period and lesser after the early adulthood of individuals. Reasons for this phenomenon have been the subject of debate for several decades. There have been theories emerging from time to time trying to explain the fact. First, crime itself was attributed to individuals not fully developed like lesser homo-sapiens i.e due to biological nature of individuals. Then came the theory of environment shaping the criminal behaviour. Of late for nearly fifty years now, social learning theory that takes into account of environment and cognitivism as well, has emerged as the major determinant of criminal behaviour in human beings developing since early childhood. This paper will briefly analyse the social learning theory and the reasons for age-crime relationship. Farrington (1986) states that apart from the well known age-crime curve having the tendency to peak during teenage years and then to decrease, the age-crime curve also reflects the variations in prevalence rather than incidence. While prevalence refers to the proportion of offending persons, incidence refers to rate of offending acts by the offenders. The incidence does not change consistently between onset and termination of criminal behavior which fact influences criminal justice policy. After the peak period, the residual length of criminal career may be between thirty and forty years of age. The fact that different types of offences peak in different ages explains crime switching rather than taking over of one group by another. Specialization in crime is said to increase with the age. The age-crime curve reflects decreased parental control and increase in peer influence. The age-crime distribution study shows that crime rates progressively decline as the age increases after initial rise in adolescence and peak in later years as found by Steffensmeier et al (1989).Though they agree that crime diminishes with age, they differ with the view about strength and universality of age-crime relation. According to Farrington (2003), onset of criminal acts peak between the ages 9-14, prevalence peaks between ages 15-19 and desistance peaks between 20-29. Bandura’s Social learning theory The correlation between age and crime has been explained by Alfred Bandura who was first inspired by the behaviourist B.F.Skinner as early as in 1960s when he was a student. The latter’s theory posits that external stimuli influences human behavior. The stimuli either in the form of reward or punishment is attributed to external environment. Though initially Bandura agreed with Skinner, he later felt behaviourists relied on experimental methods that gave rise to observable variables to be manipulated and measured, thereby arriving at an easily acceptable theory. Since there was scientific basis of evidence, objective psychology was developed by behaviourists, Thus it led to the belief that behavior could be tested and the resultant data could be utilized to control behavior. Bandura found Skinner’s approach too simplistic and felt there should be something more to understand human personality and behavior could not be a mere response to the environment. Although Bandura agreed with Skinner’s argument that environment influenced behavior, reverse was also true in that behavior too affected environment. Thus the situational human behavior would further change the situation. This Bandura called reciprocal determinism associated with three factors of individual’s behavior, environment and psychological factors all of which are capable of interacting with each other leading to an individual’s personality. The cognitive factor added by Bandura to the behaviourist theory of Skinner, led to his moving away from behaviourism to cognitivism (Abbott, 2001). Thus ideas of Bandura’s concepts collectively came to be known as social learning theory which mainly relies on the cognitive component among the above said three factors. Bandura posited that people used imagery and language to identify with the world. Thus social learning consists of observational learning and self-regulation. (Abbott, 2001). Observational learning refers to learning through observations of consequences of others’ behavior. Thus, a child undergoes observational learning by watching her brother washing dishes after taking them to the kitchen from the dining table. The child sees him washing and being praised by his parents for the act. The child therefore learns by observing that taking dirty dinner plates into the kitchen is a good thing worthy of praise. The child learns to emulate her brother. However if her brother, while taking the plates, breaks the plates and is reprimanded by his parent for that act, the child learns to avoid that type behavior of not breaking the plate lest she would be scolded. Bandura conducted bobo doll studies to find out if the children would copy the behavior of adults. Thus when three groups of children were asked to watch a film in which an adult was acting aggressively towards the doll, each group perceived the adult’s behavior differently. After watching the film, the children were kept in a room along with the bobo doll and other toys and their behavior was observed. The first two groups, who saw the adult being praised, behaved aggressively while the third group which watched the adult being punished, behaved less aggressively. Thus Bandura concluded that children experienced observational learning in two ways. They learn new ways of behaving aggressively and they become more aggressive on exposure to aggressive behavior that is either rewarded or ignored. (Abbott, 2001) Self regulation refers to the theory how people control their own behavior. Self –regulation occurring in many ways, finally leads people to monitor and control their own responses to the world of their living. People constantly are self-conscious of their behavior and compare their performance with other standards. Thus self regulation tends to a have a bearing on their self-esteem. (Abbott, 2001). Self-punishment has a negative effect just as punishment has. Bandura characterizes self-punishment with escapism, inactivity and compensation. He says that these three consequences will create all sorts of problems besides low self-esteem for the individual. Afterwards the individuals start adopting neagtive attitude to themselves. In order to alter this situation, Bandura suggests that the individual concerned should first see themselves in a positive manner. Second they should not set the standards high where they are sure to fail. Lastly, they should self-reward themselves. As such a person who punishes himself should seek professional help to avoid negative attitudes. (Abbott, 2001). The last concept of Bandura’s personality is self-efficacy. This refers to the belief of ones’s own success in a given situation. For example, when people look at their past conduct which brought them success, their self-efficacy will be high. (Abbott, 2001). Comstock and Paik (1991) conducted 1000 studies on the effect of media violence and concluded that they had strong short-term effects and weak long-term effects. They cited five factors responsible for aggressive behavior as a result of TV watching. (1) The viewer identifies with the violent actor. (2) The viewer considers it as real as opposed to cartons. Hence the validity of realism in bobo doll studies. (3) The viewer does not know the victim’s suffering. (4) The viewer gets emotionally excited by watching the violent behavior and (5) the violent behavior is established as an effective way of getting things done. However, a study in St Helena where the island’s inhabitants received their first TV only in 1995, there was no increased violence observed after the TV’s coming into their place. (Charlton, 1998). Self-control is explained for desistence from committing crimes. On the other hand, the individual with low-self control tends to be impulsive, risk-taking, temperamental, attracted to physical activity, having a liking for doing simple and easy tasks and lacking empathy. Rational people weigh the perceived pleasure of carrying out an act against perceived pain of an act before deciding to engage in a chosen behavior. When the perceived pleasure outweighs the perceived pain, an individual is more likely to perform a behaviour. The behaviour can be a crime. The level of self-control is what determines an individual’s perception of pleasure or pain. (Higgins et al, 2009) While the degree of self-control is the deciding factor for desistance, other factors such as marriage, entering into job, moving away from a place of living and separation from peers also contribute to move away from criminal behaviour. This also explains why the individuals in their early ages without sufficient resources for their daily pocket expenses and without parental control, commit more crimes. The curvilinear relationship between age and crime is also because of the above tendencies in individuals. Co-offending at an early age is more because of peer pressure and it gradually reduces in adulthood on being separated from peers due to compulsions of marriage, job and other factors. (Stolzenberg and D’Alessio, 2008) As the individuals age, their incapacity increases and therefore crime incidence is lesser in the older age groups. (Abbot, 2001) Conclusion Although the negative behavior is explicit, it is too simplistic to say that situation or personality alone can be a predictor of behavior. As such interactionist approach that takes into account of both situation and personality can be the best predictor of human behavior. Social theory has been an eye opener as to how children and adults behave after observing others and shape their personality and behavior. Bandura says that major contributors are the situation and experience to predict behavior. The thesis of this paper being crime, correlated to age, Bandura’s social learning theory helps us appreciate the fact that children and young people are more prone to more aggressive behavior and that reciprocal determinism explained above also plays an important role in shaping society. Though the reasons for curvilinear relationship of age-crime curve seem to be well founded, debate on the issue is still not conclusive. If the nature of relationship of the age-crime is attributed to modern life style alone, it is not clear whether this was the case even earlier i e prior to coming of television and other visually influential media or at least, this question was not part of this research. . . References Abbott Tina. (2001) Social and Personality Development, Routledge Charlton, (1998) in Abbott Tina. (2001) Social and Personality Development, Routledge Comstock and Paik (1991) in Abbott Tina. (2001) Social and Personality Development, Routledge Farrington David, P. (1986) Age and Crime, Crime and Justice, 7 pp 189-250. Farrington (2003) in Verrill, S. W. “The Age Crime Relationship: A Function of Differential Association, variable-Interval Reinforcement, and Extinction." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology (ASC) . 2009-05-24 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p125484_index.html Higgins George E., Jennings Wesley G., Tewksbury Richard and Gibson Chris L., (2009) Exploring the link between low-self control and violent victimization trajectories in adolescents, Criminal Justice and Behaviour, 36(10) 1070-1084 Steffensmeier Darrell J, Allan Emilie Andersen. Harer Miles D, Streifel Cathy The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 94, No. 4, pp. 803-831 Stolzenberg Lisa and D’Alessio Stewart J, (2008) Co-offending and Age-Crime Curve, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 45(1)65-86 Read More