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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.
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Participants:
411 White working class London boys ages 8 and 9.
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Method:
- Data collection and criminal record checks.
- At age 48, 93% were interviewed. (365/394
) - 161 had criminal convictions.
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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.
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A problem with criminal record checks is..
Participants may have committed crimes and not been caught, or charged or convicted.
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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.
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Chronic offenders shared these childhood characteristics:
- A convicted parent
- High daring
- A delinquent sibling
- A young mother
- Low popularity
- Disrupted family
- Large family size
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Farrington concluded:
Offenders tend to be deviant in many aspects of their lives.
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Early prevention that reduces offending could also reduce problems with:
- Acommodation
- Relationships
- Employment
- Alcohol
- Substance abuse/Drugs
- Agressive behaviour
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Important risk factors include:
- Criminality in the family
- Poverty
- Impulsiveness
- Poor child-rearing
- Poor school preformance
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