Surveys the major theoretical approaches to understanding delinquent behavior, both biological and psychological. It features careful explanations of the major theories and analyzes each theory's underlying assumptions, the important concepts behind it, and finally the critical evaluations of the research associated with each theory presented.
In Developmental Theories of Crime and Delinquency, Terence P. Thornberry and his contributors show that criminal behavior is not a static human attribute, but ebbs and flows over the life course of the individual. Criminal behavior tends to follow a distinct psychological pattern. It is relatively uncommon during childhood, is initiated by most offenders during adolescence, flourishes during late adolescence and early childhood, and usually diminishes or disappears by the mid-twenties. This pattern is not characteristic of all people--some never commit crimes and others become career criminals--but it is a general description of the developmental pattern of criminal offenders. This pattern has profound implications for theories of crime and delinquency. Not only does it explain initiation into, maintenance of, and desistance from involvement in crime, it offers insight into why crime flourishes during adolescence. Traditional theories of crime and delinquency have often failed to distinguish among different phases of criminal careers. They tend to ignore developmental changes that occur across a person's life course, changes that coincide with and can explain the causes and patterns of criminal behavior. This paperback edition of the seventh volume of the distinguished series Advances in Criminological Theory moves us from static identifications of the criminal by presenting a broad range of developmental explanations of crime. Each contributor articulates a developmental or life course perspective in explaining how people become involved in delinquency and crime. Each covers a wide range of theoretical territory and reveals how a developmental perspective enhances the explanatory power of traditional theories of crime and delinquency. This volume is an invaluable tool for criminologists, sociologists, psychologists, and other professionals seeking to teach how crime and violence can be understood in our culture.
For the past twenty to thirty years, control theories of crime have been at the center of theoretical development in criminology. Key to the control theory perspective is the notion that crime is an inherently individual act, and its explanation requires that we focus on the characteristics of individuals who commit crimes. Consequently, control theory focuses on such issues as self-control and social control. The contributions to this volume explicate and extend the application of control theory. It is divided into three general areas. Part 1 focuses on key assumptions and components of control theories. Contributors discuss the notion of learning, or socialization, in the context of control theory and the effects that families, peers, and the criminal justice system have on self-control, social ties, and criminal behavior. Part 2 applies control theory to areas typically assumed to be out of the domain of self-control theory and social control theory, such as gender differences in crime, domestic violence, and group crime. Considering control theory's emphasis on explaining individual criminal acts, these chapters suggest an interesting area of development by highlighting the possibility that differences in crime across or within groups may begin with individual characteristics and then making inferences about groups and group processes. Part 3 approaches the explanation of crime cross-nationally and at the macro-level. Although the authors take different approaches, they all illustrate that a theory of crime does not require culture-specific elements in order to be a valid cross-cultural explanation. Contributors to this volume include: Robert Agnew, Todd Armstrong, Leana Allen Bouffard, Augustine Brannigan, Chester Britt, Barbara Costello, Maja Dekovic, Matt DeLisi, Michael Gottfredson, Henriette Haas, Kelly H. Hardwick, Travis Hirschi, Marianne Junger, Martin Killias, Helen Mederer, Kevin Thompson, and Alexander Vazsonyi.
This slim volume offers a comprehensive survey of the major criminological and delinquency theories including their philosophical foundations and policy implications. The text can be used as either a primary text or as a supplement for other texts, anthologies, or collections of journal articles.
Delinquency Theories: Appraisals and applications provides a fulsome and accessible overview of contemporary theories of juvenile delinquency. The book opens with a comprehensive description of what a theory is, and explains how theories are created in the social sciences. Following on, each subsequent chapter is dedicated to describing an individual theory, broken down and illustrated within four distinct sections. Initially, each chapter tells the tale of a delinquent youth, and from this example a thorough review of the particular theory and related research can be undertaken to explain the youth’s delinquent behaviour. The third and fourth sections of each chapter critically analyze the theories, and provide a straightforward discussion of policy implications of each, thus encouraging readers to evaluate the usefulness of these theories and also to consider the relationship between theory and policy. This text is an invaluable resource for both undergraduate and graduate students of subjects such as youth justice, delinquency, social theory, and criminology.
Why is crime persistent over generations, within families and within certain individuals? Is crime the manifestation of an inherited latent trait or the result of a failure of socialization and norm-setting processes? Why do youths commit crimes? Delinquency and Crime contains essays by nine leading criminologists that seek to answer these and other questions by describing current theories of crime and the research evidence that supports them. The authors' views on crime causation go beyond traditional criminological theories of strain, cultural deviance, social control, differential association and social learning to present emerging and integrated models of the origins of crime, including antisocial peer socialization, social development, interactional theory, behavior genetics, and community determinants. Each essay explores the practical implication of the authors' theoretical work for crime prevention and control.
This volume marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Travis Hirschi’s seminal work Causes of Delinquency. The influence of Hirschi’s book, and the theory of social control it described, can scarcely be overstated. Social control theory has been empirically tested or commented on by hundreds of scholars and is generally regarded as one of the three dominant theories of crime. The current work highlights the impact that social control theory has had on criminological theory and research to date. Agnew’s contribution highlights the role that Hirschi’s tests of control versus strain theory had in contributing to the "near demise" of classic strain theories, and to the subsequent development of general strain theory. Serrano-Maillo relates control to drift, and Tedor and Hope compare the human nature assumptions of control theory to the current psychological literature. Other contributions return to Hirschi’s original Richmond Youth Survey (RYS) data and demonstrate the robustness of Hirschi’s major findings. Costello and Anderson find strong support for Hirschi’s predictions in an analysis of a diverse group of youths in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in 1999; Nofziger similarly finds support for Hirschi’s predictions with an analysis of the girls in the RYS, and explores the criticisms of social control theory that were the result of Hirschi’s failure to analyze the data from the girls in the sample. Kempf-Leonard revisits her seminal 1993 survey of control theory and reviews the current empirical status of control theory. Other contributions explore new directions for both social control theory and self-control theory. The contribution by Cullen, Lee, and Butler holds that one element of the social bond, commitment, was under-theorized by Hirschi, and the authors present a more in-depth development of the concept. Quist explores the possibility of expanding social control theory to explicitly incorporate exchange theory concepts; Ueda and Tsutomi apply control theory cross-culturally to a sample of Japanese students; and Felson uses control theory to organize criminological ideas. Vazsonyi and Javakhishvili’s contribution is an empirical analysis of the connections between social control in early childhood and self-control later in life; Chapple and McQuillan’s contribution suggests that the gender gap in delinquency is better explained by increased controls in girls than by gendered pathways to offending. Oleson traces the evolution of Hirschi’s control theory, and suggests that, given the relationships between fact and theory, a biosocial model of control might be a promising line of inquiry. Fifty Years of Causes of Delinquency: The Criminology of Travis Hirschi describes the current state of control theory and suggests its future directions, as well as demonstrates its enduring importance for criminological theory and research. The volume will be of interest to scholars working in the control theory tradition as well as those critical of the perspective, and is suitable for use in graduate courses in criminological theory.
Leading Theories of Delinquent Behavior and Criminology covers major theories of crime, delinquent behavior, and criminology. This introductory primer criminology book demonstrates the contemporary uses of each criminological theory and summarizes the major points of each. The text primarily focuses on providing students with uncomplicated elucidation of each theory's fundamental concepts and perspectives. This book offers a fruitful approach to understanding major theories of crime, delinquent behavior, and criminology.
In Causes of Delinquency, Hirschi attempts to state and test a theory of delinquency, seeing in the delinquent a person relatively free of the intimate attachments, the aspirations, and the moral beliefs that bind most people to a life within the law. In prominent alternative theories, the delinquent appears either as a frustrated striver forced into delinquency by his acceptance of the goals common to us all, or as an innocent foreigner attempting to obey the rules of a society that is not in position to make the law or define conduct as good or evil. Hirschi analyzes a large body of data on delinquency collected in Western Contra Costa County, California, contrasting throughout the assumptions of the strain, control, and cultural deviance theories. He outlines the assumptions of these theories and discusses the logical and empirical difficulties attributed to each of them. Then draws from sources an outline of social control theory, the theory that informs the subsequent analysis and which is advocated here.Often listed as a Citation Classic, Causes of Delinquency retains its force and cogency with age. It is an important volume and a necessary addition to the libraries of sociologists, criminologists, scholars and students in the area of delinquency.
Anomie, strain and subcultural theories are among the leading theories of crime. Anomie theories state that crime results from the failure of society to regulate adequately the behavior of individuals, particularly the efforts of individuals to achieve monetary success. Strain theories focus on the impact of strains or stressors on crime, including the inability to achieve monetary success through legal channels. And subcultural theories argue that some individuals turn to crime because they belong to groups that excuse, justify or approve of crime. This volume presents the leading selections on each theory, including the original statements of the theories, key efforts to revise the theories, and the latest statements of each theory. The coeditors, Robert Agnew and Joanne Kaufman, are prominent strain theorists; and their introductory essay provides an overview of the theories, discusses the relationship between them, and introduces each of the selections.
