Final Project - Life Course Theory, 4 pg final paper PDF

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Final Project - Life Course Theory, 4 pg final paper...

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Connor Morris Sociology of Crime Final Project - Life Course Theory

In criminology, we look at why people commit crimes, we look at the places where crime is the most prevalent and concentrated, and we study relationships between the different factors that contribute to crime. Over the past few hundred years, as society has become increasingly civilized and conformed, humans have started to think about crime in other points of view. We know that crime is an inevitable fact, and it is impossible for it to be completely eradicated. To get a better understanding of why there is crime, how it affects society, and how crime can be reduced, criminologists have come up with hundreds of theories that help to explain the relationship between humans and this apparent need for criminality in civilization. One theory that has peaked my interest, is the life course perspective theory. The life course perspective theory tries to explain the relationship between the time throughout the course of a human’s life, and a human behavior during that time. Why one child grow up to be a criminal, and another child from the same family grows up to be a successful citizen? Why would a juvenile grow up to be a contributing member of society and a “good” adolescent grow up and becomes imprisoned? This theory tries to explain questions like these by looking at a person’s age, transitions of life, relationships and social and environmental changes in a person’s life from the time the person is born, until the point of death. The characteristics of the person and the environment in which the person lives also plays a factor in how they develop through life.

Many sociologists, social historians, and psychologists have helped contribute to the shape of this theory and make it emerge over the last 45 years. One of the earliest contributors to this theory was a sociologist named Glen Elder Jr, and he continues to be a driving force for the development of the life course perspective theory. After going through the great depression with his family, Glen wanted to develop a theory and do research that looks at the influence of outside factors on family, education and work roles. Once social historians began to be interested in the beginnings of the life course theory, they started looking at how families and individuals change under different situations and how they adapt their lives to the accommodate change. These historians, sociologists, scholars, and other workers who rely on the life course theory for their profession rely on some basic concepts: transitions and trajectories, turning points, and life events. A transition is defined as being a distinct change in a person’s prior roles and statuses. These transitions happen throughout our whole life and include starting school, going through puberty, going to college, getting a career, and so on. Along with these positive transitions, life can include many negative transitions such as having an unplanned pregnancy at an early age, dropping out of school, or having a loved one die. According to this view, crime can’t be attributed to a single cause. People are influenced to different factors as they age and cumulative impact of disruptions can cause and sustain criminality. One concept is that an individual is supposed to experience these transitions in order. It starts with finishing high school and then college, entering the workforce, getting married, and then having children. According to this theory, if one of these transitions is disrupted because of a negative event, more negative events will be brought with it if the individual doesn’t get back on the order of the path. For example, if a girl became pregnant and had a kid in high school, this might cause her to drop out of school.

Now the order is disrupted and the girl could either fall into more negative life events or try to get her life back on track. One problem with this concept is that even people that fall into this “perfect” life course where everything goes as planned still could turn to a life of crime. They might not join a gang or start selling drugs, but there are many crimes that people commit even when all their transitions have been positive. An example of this would be white collar crime. An individual could follow all of the positive transitions and be a millionaire with a good career and family, and could still take bribes and steal money just because they are greedy and want a higher income. Another concept in the life course theory is trajectory. Trajectory goes hand in hand with transitions because trajectories have many transitions imbedded in them. Trajectories follow long-term patterns in life and often have some continuity in one direction. For example, a trajectory could be a person having alcoholism. This person will continue their life using alcohol and have many negative transitions as a result such as family problems or the loss of a job. This would only further increase the person’ alcoholism until they change their trajectory somehow. People and their families typically have multiple trajectories in their life which intersect, such as education trajectories, physical health trajectories, or career trajectories. I can agree with this concept because there are rarely any occasions where a person is on a certain trajectory with their life, and they completely change it without any transition event. There is always a transitional event that changes the trajectory of a person’s life into something positive, or negative like joining a gang. A turning point is another concept in the life course theory which goes along with trajectories. A turning point is defined as a major change that occurs in someone’s life trajectory. These turning points are positive and usually involve a person getting out from a criminal

lifestyle and into a stable lifestyle. Two critical turning points include getting married and getting a career. Adolescents that are going down a criminal path can change if they find they have a chance to get a successful career or marry someone they love. Even current criminals can change their lifestyle because of a turning point and start on a positive trajectory. An example could be the man that has alcoholism. This person will change their trajectory to a life of recovery once they experience a turning point where they are forced to modify their habits. Something that greatly influences these turning points is social capital. Social capital is positive relations with individuals and institutions that build someone’s personal success and positive behavior. A successful marriage or job will improve a person’s overall nature and feelings of self-worth. In this theory, when there is a person with a high social capital, there is no reason for them to commit crimes. One way that this could be disputed, is again with greed and white collar crime. Even with high social capital, this person still wants to get more money and will do so by stealing from companies. A high social capital might even encourage this, because the people they are working with also want to make more money, so they accept bribes and do back-doordeals for their own benefit. The last concept in the life course theory is life events. A life event is a significant occurrence in someone’s life that produces serious and long-lasting effects. This term is referring to the occurrence itself and not the transitions and trajectory change that occurs because of the event. These events can be positive or negative such as getting married or the death of a spouse. These events can have a serious impact on the different trajectories in a person’s life, including their physical health or financial well-being. After doing extensive research on the life course theory, I was able to find that every major source had most of the same content on the matter. This theory has been developing for

over 45 years, and I believe that it has some very valid arguments and concepts. There is no doubt that it can explain why people fall into a life of crime when they do, but my biggest gripe with this theory is that it doesn’t have any clear way of how we can prevent crime. I think this theory is just going for “the best offence is a good defense.” By being able to explain why crime starts and having a better understanding of criminal’s lives, we might be able to stop future criminals.

References Hutchison, E. (n.d.). A Life Course Perspective. Retrieved December 9, 2014 Blokland, A., & Nieuwbeerta, P. (2009, August 29). Life Course Criminology. Retrieved December 9, 2014 Sampson, R. J., & Laub, J. H. (1997). A life-course theory of cumulative disadvantage and the stability of delinquency. Developmental theories of crime and delinquency, 7, 133-161. Elder, G. H. (1998). The life course as developmental theory. Child development, 69(1), 1-12. Elder Jr, Glen H., Monica Kirkpatrick Johnson, and Robert Crosnoe. The emergence and development of life course theory. Springer US, 2003. Hirschi, T., & Gottfredson, M. R. (1995). Control theory and the life-course perspective. Studies on Crime & Crime Prevention....