Why do some children become criminals in later life?

Amy Parkes Page 5/9/2007

Innocence used to be related to childhood; according to home office statistics in 1996 the UK witnessed 177,000 of youths aged 10-17 cautioned or convicted, which was a staggering 25% of the total amount for the UK. Juvenile delinquency is a worldwide complex issue where delinquency is the deviation of social morals and values in that particular society and the violation of criminal or ‘youthful’ codes. There are no definite answers to the causes and development of delinquency but there are numerous explanations that attempt to account for this. In this essay I intend to focus on three theories: Psychoanalytical, social-cognitive and behavioural, and finally suggest ways in which it could be prevented in the future.

One of the main explanations is the behaviourist theory, Ivan Pavlov (1890) is renown for the learning theory, which adopts the extreme ‘nurture’ approach to explanations and denies the probability of any genetically characterised contributions, which forms the basis of this theory. Other psychologists have since developed the theory - Sutherland (1924) proposed the Differential Association Theory where delinquency can be explained through learning behaviour from other people, this supports current ongoing research into family and peer groups and child upbringing where McCord (1979) suggests that a child’s upbringing can predict criminal behaviour. He emphasized that learning doesn’t have to be through association with criminals but just simple every-day behaviour that could be seen to favour criminality. For example a juvenile could witness a parent not confessing to being given too much change in a shop and interpret it as having desirable outcomes and being acceptable. This does explain how juveniles could develop to criminality as they have learned the behaviour from other people and expect it to be right.

Extending this Skinner (1933) highlighted the Operant Learning Theory, where behaviourism is related to the environmental consequences it produces as Skinner said, “behaviour operates on the environment” [Skinner]. This explains development through what he called positive and negative enforcement. If there are desirable consequences then the frequency will increase and thereby be reinforced. For example theft or shop-lifting, the consequence is gaining the objects and is seen as a desirable or positive outcome and would be repeated because of this, similarly in the context of this example they can also be negatively reinforced as they are able to avoid social problems such as financial hardship, and also would be repeated because of this, which can explain why juveniles do develop into criminals in later life as the criminal activity has been reinforced. Supporting this Jeffrey (1965) suggested that operant learning could be associated with a 3 term Contingency – where there is a preceding event, a response referring to the juveniles actions and the consequences of the response, according to this and Skinner juveniles who repeatedly get desirable responses are more likely to re-offend and progress to criminal activity.

When considering recommendations I believe that the future police and penal systems need to use more effective time management between caution and conviction as this can be lengthy, which gives the juvenile opportunities to re-offend, supporting this Skinner found that the time difference between response and reinforcement is immediate, which suggests that these problems should be dealt with quickly before further enforcement and shaping.

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Another possible cause is outlined by Bandura (1977) and the Social Learning theory is associated with Skinners findings but extends the basic operant principles and like Sutherlands Differential Association Theory considers that people learn through the actions of others rather than there being an inner drive; occurring through both reinforcement and modelling which involves learning through observation. Like Skinner, behaviour is reinforced, Bandura suggested there were three motivations: external reinforcement, vicarious reinforcement which is the most important being the observation of other peoples behaviour being rewarded or punished and lastly self reinforcement where there is a sense of pride and an increase of self-esteem. Which motivates the juvenile to imitate and repeat it in the future this suggests that juveniles who are exposed to criminal behaviour both through parental influences or even violent films at an early age would imitate it and repeat it in the future.

One criticism of this is that for it to be solely on the environment and social observation it is weak, which is where the ‘ nature-nurture’ debate is emphasised, Walmseley et al. (1992) suggests that genetics play an important part, he found that 1/3 of UK prisoners also had a family member in prison, which shows genetics and social environments are both important and the behaviourist psychologists don’t consider, however much progress has been made in child behaviour from these findings.

This leads to Social-Cognitive theories, which refers to the way people are thinking, Glueck and Glueck (1950) found that impulsive and concrete are typical styles of thinking for young offenders. Impulsive is the failure to learn; other characteristics include failure of effective thinking and lack of reflection. Which explains why young offenders have no remorse for there offences and can progress to become a criminal. Supporting this is Rotenberg and Nachshon (1979) where they found offenders to be more impulsive than non-offenders. However, other researchers have found there to be no significant difference, so one should consider that different researchers adapt to different definitions and measures in there experiments, explaining why we see different outcomes. When considering this theory it is very important to appreciate this imbalance.

Juveniles are said to have other problems such as problem solving, and low moral reasoning. Freedman et al (1978) stated “young offenders show less competent responses to social problems than non-offenders” which suggests that it could be due to social interactions, age, family and upbringing and so could be related to their childhood, as the behaviourist approach also enhances.

The structure of the family and home environments according to Shumaker (1994) are very important in the development of the child. The psychoanalyst approach supports this as; Bowlby theory of attachments supports this and the concept that every child in development goes through a ‘critical’ period, which he stated was 2 ½ years old. Deprivation of these attachments means they don’t have the security of a safe environment and the emotional support, which a child elicits from at an early age which seems to suggest that children who don’t have an attachment or are adopted or fostered lack the support, and become delinquents and later criminals. Glueck and Glueck’s findings of causes of delinquency support this idea they include:

Ineffective child rearing, lack of strict discipline.
Lack of love
Lack of supervision
Family disruption e.g. divorce
Parental characteristics e.g. mental problems

Bowlby’s study of forty-four thieves in 1946 studied 44 delinquents and showed they were ‘affectionless psychopaths’ by finding out about their past and background - 86% had been recorded as being put into care before age of 5. This suggests that bond disruptions or lack of an attachment can cause or contribute to delinquent behaviour as Glueck suggested ‘lack of love and child rearing’.

The strengths of this approach are that Bowlby compared the 44 thieves to a control group of 44 children who were not recorded as delinquents you get a direct comparison and the findings are more viable. Another strength is that it has support from other researchers including Cuirran and Renzetti’s theory of social control (1944) - where if children are unattached to elements of their environment they are more likely to become juvenile delinquents.

Possible ways of dealing with this could be to improve parent rearing techniques and working with families to improve quality of life, which would help in the early stages of development by encouraging appropriate behaviour. This could be through social workers interacting more with day to day life with delinquents for example by helping to develop guidelines which have to be followed, which will be within the social norms of society, and encourage behaviour which is seen as acceptable.

Schooling and learning should be more controlled and fun for children, it would encourage them to go to school regularly and learn, consequently learning moral values and increasing their own intelligence, as low IQ’s is associated with delinquency according to Hollin.

Freud, who said that criminals “have manifesting disturbances of the ego”, forwards other psychoanalytical theories. Which implies there be an imbalance between the ID-EGO-SUPEREGO, the ego being overdeveloped which resulted in repressed criminal instincts, which we all have at the first stage of development breaking through. This supports why some children become delinquents and some don’t as some have this imbalance. Freud’s theories are seen as outdated and old fashioned, as he never studied criminals.

There are a multitude of factors that cause some children to develop into criminals; the three theories I have outlined are a select few. They all appear to suggest that influences from other people play a bit part in a child’s life either through upbringing or just simple observation. Which shows that in order to effectively deal with the issues, social workers and other support groups need to focus more on helping family bonds and structure in stabilising a child’s life and deter them from any potential criminality.