Psychology

  1. Aim:
    • Document start, duration and end of offending behaviour from childhood to adulthood in families.
    • Investigate the influences of life events, risk and protective factors predicting offending and anti-social behaviour and influence of family background.
  2. Participants:
    411 White working class London boys ages 8 and 9.
  3. Method:
    • Data collection and criminal record checks.
    • At age 48, 93% were interviewed. (365/394)
    • 161 had criminal convictions.
  4. Criminal careers:
    • Offenders peaked at ages 17 and 18.
    • Offenders who began at ages 10-13 were nearly all reconvited at least once, 91%.
    • Offenders who began at ages 14-16 had on average committed 6 crimes.
    • These two groups are responsible for 77% of crimes record in the study.
  5. A problem with criminal record checks is..
    Participants may have committed crimes and not been caught, or charged or convicted.
  6. 7% of participants were called..
    • Chronic offenders, being responsible for aroud half of all recorded crimes.
    • Their criminal careers lasted from 14-35 years old.
    • Farrington described them as persisters, being convicted before and after their 21st birthday.
  7. Chronic offenders shared these childhood characteristics:
    • A convicted parent
    • High daring
    • A delinquent sibling
    • A young mother
    • Low popularity
    • Disrupted family
    • Large family size
  8. Farrington concluded:
    Offenders tend to be deviant in many aspects of their lives.
  9. Early prevention that reduces offending could also reduce problems with:
    • Acommodation
    • Relationships
    • Employment
    • Alcohol
    • Substance abuse/Drugs
    • Agressive behaviour
  10. Important risk factors include:
    • Criminality in the family
    • Poverty
    • Impulsiveness
    • Poor child-rearing
    • Poor school preformance
Author
EllisC
ID
173529
Card Set
Psychology
Description
Farrington et al
Updated