Human Behavior Chapter 1 01 10 2013 Explanations to common criminal behavior Neighborhoods living in a bad neighborhood can lead to crime Parents Who we are and our personality traits are sometimes tied to how parents treat raise you Poverty Peers pressures from friends Culture the things we believe in Dominant Criminological Theories Social Disorganization Theory Social Bonding Theory Social Learning Theory What do all these theories have in common They all deal with the social aspects of crime Why Sociology Behavior is changeable Not your fault Biology genetics is dangerous If it is truly because of genetics then there is no way to change who you are Eyesight saying that I have bad eyesight because of my genes and I can t do anything No I go to the doctor and get glasses Genetics can be shaped by the society The study of crime and criminals is guided largely by ideology and disciplinary allegiances Criminology is supposed to be interdisciplinary In practice this is not true Social explanations to crime continue to dominate the discipline of criminology Social Bonding Theory Hirschi s theory developed in 1969 criminologists favorite theory Attachment commitment belief and involvement if you have these you are less likely to commit a crime People were born innately bad and not innately good Sociological theories are not necessarily wrong but in isolation they leave us with an impoverished and incomplete understanding to human behavior Ex heart disease Simply due to social factors No bad diet no doctor smoking drinking genetics In order to understand the causes of behavior we need to move away from a monolithic explanation of behavior and examine a range of different factors including Biology Genetics Environment Biosocial Criminology How environmental and genetic biological factors act in combination to create behaviors What is aggression and crime A tendency to exploit or bring harm to others and to disobey common social rules Direct Aggression overt and typically physical EX punching hitting or inflicting pain mostly male Indirect Aggression Covert and typically verbal EX gossip mostly female Not all aggression is illegal Antisocial Behavior stable throughout life Is it stable or does it change Does not vary based on laws and policies What is Stability Stability is a general pattern of offending that persists over time A strong linkage among childhood behavioral problems juvenile delinquency and adult criminal behavior Absolute Stability no change the way you act today will predict the way that you act tomorrow and ten years from now No difference over a period of time EX groundhog day Relative Stability refers to the rank ordering of individuals correlation analysis we can rank people on some trait or behavior the most criminal today is still going to be ranked most criminal at age 33 Behavior is highly stable Large literature reviews meta analyses reveal that behavior is highly stable loeber 1982 Olweus 1979 Our behavior becomes patterned and routine we are creatures of habit Individual differences in antisocial behavior emerge early in the life course Some traits are measurable by 6 months of age These differences can be very stable across the life course However most antisocial children do not grow up to be antisocial adults Around age 3 personality traits start to become more stable The people that are least likely to change are the ones that are at the extremes The people who change most are the ones who are in the middle area What Predicts Stability Engaging in a variety of antisocial acts hitting lying stealing Extremity of acts killing animals inflicting serious pain Early age of onset The earlier the onset the worse the condition Misbehavior that occurs across contexts home church school Adult criminal behavior almost requires childhood antisocial behavior Adult criminal behavior is better predicted by childhood aggression than by any other variable including family background and social class Stability and Behavior The most antisocial children tend to become the most antisocial adolescents who in turn tend to become the most antisocial adults High degree of stability in behavior and personality from a very young age through adulthood What accounts for stability and change State Dependence Sampson and Laub 1993 Population Heterogeneity Gottfredson and Hirschi 1990 State Dependence Stability according to this position is the result of the social consequences that emanate from engaging in crime EX what happens to a person who has been convicted of a felony Social consequences the loss of social capital Crime therefore tends to have a snowball effect wherein engaging in crime immerses an offender into a criminalistic lifestyle that is very difficult to leave How can you find a good job or pro social spouse if you are labeled as a convict Crime Consequences More crime Once an individual becomes ensnared in a life of crime stability is likely to occur However the state dependence perspective recognizes that behavior change is possible What factors promote change desistance Marriage and Desistance individuals who enter high quality marriages with a prosocial spouse are much more likely to desist from crime But why not all marriages are created equal like marry like people Sampson and Laub maintain that entering into a marriage increases social capital thereby promoting desistance Warr suggests that marriages cut off people from their friends losing antisocial friends desistance less time with friends less likely to get into trouble Sampson and Laub also found that the military fosters the desistance process gaining lawful stable employment has also been linked to desistance Why more to lose from engaging in crime You have more to lose being fired from a higher job rather than if you are fired from working at McDonalds It appears that local like circumstances are an integral component of change desistance Social factors therefore appear at least on the surface to be the main ingredient for behavioral change Not all criminals that get married will never commit crime again in fact many criminals that get married will still commit crimes Do biology and genetic factors contribute to behavioral change yes but they are not incorporated into the state dependence perspective marriage lowers testosterone levels in men testosterone levels are high around the time of divorce testosterone not marriage per se may actually be driving the relationship between marriage and desistance