Does the Nature of the Victimization–Offending Association Fluctuate Over the Life Course? An Examination of Adolescence and Early Adulthood

2015 ◽  
Vol 63 (7) ◽  
pp. 786-813 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Schreck ◽  
Mark T. Berg ◽  
Graham C. Ousey ◽  
Eric A. Stewart ◽  
J. Mitchell Miller
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Early Adolescence ◽  
Early Adulthood ◽  
Theoretical Development ◽  
Individual Change ◽  
The Core ◽  
Criminological Research ◽  
Strongly Connected ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Pathways To Desistance

Decades of criminological research has established that victimization is strongly connected with offending—this pattern is among the most durable in the criminological literature. However, there are plausible reasons to believe that under some theoretically defined conditions, the association can vary across the life course. Using 10 waves from the Pathways to Desistance data, which follow more than 1,300 youth from early adolescence into adulthood, we model within-individual change in the victimization–offending association as well as evaluate possible theoretical reasons for this change. Our results show that the influence of victimization on offending weakens as people age, although the association remains positive across the life course. The core substantive predictors, however, could not account for this temporal weakening of the association. We discuss the implications of these results for further theoretical development on offending.

The Myth of the Tech-Savvy Teen and the Clueless Senior Citizen

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 360-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Travis C. Pratt
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Senior Citizens ◽  
Early Adulthood ◽  
Senior Citizen ◽  
Risky Behaviors ◽  
Criminological Research ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
The Life Course

It is a popular idea that younger people are more technology-savvy than their older counterparts. It is an equally popular idea that our oldest generation—senior citizens—is so clueless about new technological developments that they are the most vulnerable to technology-based forms of victimization. The present article, however, demonstrates that these ideas are myths and that it is the young—not the old—who are most at risk of victimization when technology is involved. This should come as no surprise since the age–victimization curve mirrors rather closely the age–crime curve, where the risk of victimization typically peaks in late adolescence and early adulthood and follows a steady decline thereafter. The risks associated with technologically based forms of victimization—at least in general—are no different. The implications of dispelling these myths for criminological research as we move forward are discussed in the context of the nature of “risky” behaviors at different stages of the life course.

A Life-Course Approach to Understanding Differential Relevance of Deviant Peers for Predicting Cocaine/Crack Use

2020 ◽  
pp. 001112872097871
Author(s):  
Thomas Wojciechowski
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Early Adulthood ◽  
Quadratic Function ◽  
Deviant Peers ◽  
Crack Use ◽  
Peer Association ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Pathways To Desistance ◽  
The Relationship

Deviant peer association has been identified as a risk factor for cocaine/crack use. However, understanding is more limited regarding the stability in the salience of this effect across the life-course. The present study utilized the Pathways to Desistance data to test for variance in the magnitude of the relationship between deviant peer association and cocaine/crack use using mixed effects ordered logistic modeling. Results indicated that cocaine/crack use frequency varied as a quadratic function of time. The interactions between deviant peer association and age variables indicated that the magnitude of this relationship first declined during adolescence, but then increased during early adulthood. Implications are discussed.

Youth Violence in Germany

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anke Erdmann ◽  
Jost Reinecke
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Youth Violence ◽  
Mutual Influence ◽  
Early Adulthood ◽  
Theory Development ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Latent Growth ◽  
German Research Foundation ◽  
Parallel Processes ◽  
The Life Course

The victim–offender overlap is currently under discussion in criminology. However, the connection between victimization and offending over the life course still requires further investigation. The present study examines whether the victim–offender overlap is invariant during the transition from adolescence to early adulthood using seven consecutive waves of the German Research Foundation–funded self-report study “Crime in the Modern City,” which contain information about German students from the age of 14 to 20 years. The results indicate that the nature as well as the strength of the overlap changes over the period from adolescence to early adulthood. The introduced measurement of the relative victim–offender overlap indicates that with growing up, fewer victims are also offenders whereas the amount of offenders that are also victims remains stable. Longitudinal analyses based on latent growth and cross-lagged panel models further point out that the developments of victimization and offending are highly parallel processes that evince similar stability and mutual influence over the phase of youth and adolescence. However, the association between both weakens over age. In conclusion, our results suggest variance in the victim–offender overlap over the life course. This justifies the demand for further research and theory development on this criminological phenomenon.

scholarly journals CONTINUITY OF CAREER OVER THE LIFE COURSE ON LIFE SATISFACTION AND DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS IN LATER LIFE

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S128-S129
Author(s):  
Melanie S Hill ◽  
James E Hill ◽  
Stephanie Richardson ◽  
Jessica Brown ◽  
Jeremy B Yorgason ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Life Satisfaction ◽  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Career Choice ◽  
Early Adulthood ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Identity scholars have suggested that having a unified sense of past, present, and future is related to positive well-being outcomes (Whitbourne, Sneed & Skultety, 2009). One’s occupation can have a profound influence on an individual’s identity throughout the life course (Nazar & van der Heijden, 2012). Research has looked at career mobility among younger age groups (Baiyun, Ramkissoon, Greenwood, & Hoyte, 2018); however, less is known about the impact of career stability later in life. Consistency in career choice over the life course may have positive outcomes down the line as career becomes part of an individual's identity. The current study uses the Life and Family Legacies dataset, a longitudinal state-representative sample of 3,348, to examine individual’s careers at three points in the life course: high school (projected career choice), early adulthood, and later life. Results revealed that a match of desired career in high school and actual career in early adulthood was not predictive of life satisfaction or depressive symptoms in later life. However, a match of career in early adulthood and later life was significantly related to better life satisfaction and less depressive symptoms, which was explained through higher levels of job satisfaction. This study highlights the importance of acquiring and maintaining a career that is fulfilling to the individual over the course of early adulthood to later life.

The Impact of PTSD-Linked Strain Sensitivity on Violent Offending: Differences in Effects During Adolescence Versus Early Adulthood

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-194
Author(s):  
Thomas W. Wojciechowski
Keyword(s):  
Juvenile Offenders ◽  
Negative Binomial ◽  
Early Adulthood ◽  
Negative Binomial Regression ◽  
Strain Sensitivity ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
Violent Offending ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Pathways To Desistance ◽  
The Impact

ObjectivesInvestigate the relevance of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)-linked strain sensitivity associated with exposure to violence for predicting violence outcomes among juvenile offenders during adolescence and early adulthood.MethodsThis study uses the Pathways to Desistance data and to test relevant relationships. Two series of negative binomial regression models were estimated to test hypotheses, one corresponding to each period of the life course.ResultsResults indicated that witnessed violence interacted with PTSD status in adolescence, indicating that individuals afflicted with PTSD demonstrated heightened sensitivity to this strain, manifested in increased violent offending.ConclusionsResults indicate that witnessed violence may act as a trigger during adolescence, resulting in juvenile offenders with PTSD responding with violence. This may have treatment implications for individuals suffering from PTSD.

scholarly journals Concentration of Critical Events over the Life Course and Life Satisfaction later in life

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiara L. Comolli ◽  
Danilo Bolano ◽  
Laura Bernardi ◽  
Marieke Voorpostel
Keyword(s):  
Life Satisfaction ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Time Lag ◽  
Early Adulthood ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Critical Events ◽  
Family Work ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
The Life Course

Critical events are occurrences that create turning points, disrupt individuals’ life courses and affect wellbeing. Here, we investigate how the co-occurrence of critical events and, in particular, the spacing in time of events across the life course influences life satisfaction in later life. We argue that life phases densely populated of critical events may translate into an acute resource drain affecting wellbeing in long term more strongly than if the same events were sparsely distributed. We use retrospective biographical information on critical events in family, work, health and residential trajectories in Switzerland to construct a life course Concentration Index of events based on the number, the time-lag between the occurrences and the number of life domains involved. Our results show that the higher is the concentration in time of critical events, the stronger will be their negative long-term effect on wellbeing, net of socio-demographic characteristics, of the total number of events ever experienced and of the time since the last event. Furthermore, such negative effect is even stronger if the person experienced periods dense of events during midlife and older adulthood than during youth or early adulthood.

scholarly journals New Issues in Life Course Research: Which Early-Life Factors Matter for Late-Life Outcomes?

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 28-28
Author(s):  
Jacqui Smith ◽  
Katrina Walsemann
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Early Adulthood ◽  
Late Life ◽  
Work And Family ◽  
Poor Health ◽  
Relative Role ◽  
Life Outcomes ◽  
Social Adversity ◽  
The Life Course

Abstract The increased availability of retrospective information about the lives of participants in population panel studies has expanded the range of precursors to include in life course research. However, this also challenges researchers to select among many potential precursors to a late-life outcome and to determine the relative role of factors from different periods in the life course. Each paper in this symposium uses life course information from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to examine different late-life outcomes. Speakers will discuss what guided the particular selection of factors and outcome to examine in their study. Sonnega, Helppie-McFall, and Lee focus on indicators of childhood financial and social adversity as potential predictors of early retirement due to poor health. Park, Larkina, and Smith ask if decisions taken in early adulthood about how to balance work-and family-life by individuals and their partners are related to the categories of important life accomplishments older adults report in their life review. Two papers examine precursors of late-life health outcomes. Williams-Farrelly and Smith identified different profiles of physical activity in early- and mid-adulthood. They discuss associations between these profiles and cognitive aging. Whereas social losses, relocation, and multimorbidity are well-documented precursors of Major Depression in old age, Bergmans and Smith asked if poor health in childhood played a distal role. The session concludes with an integrative discussion of issues by Walsemann.

scholarly journals Causality in life course research: the potential use of ‘natural experiments’ for causal inference

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-25
Author(s):  
Ross Macmillan ◽  
Carmel Hannan
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Causal Inference ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Causal Explanation ◽  
Theoretical Development ◽  
Natural Experiments ◽  
Statistical Estimates ◽  
Road Map ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
The Life Course

Recent decades have seen renewed attention to issues of causal inference in the social sciences, yet implications for life course research have not been spelled out nor is it clear what types of approaches are best suited for theoretical development on life course processes. We begin by evaluating a number of meta-theoretical perspectives, including critical realism, data mining and experimentation, and find them limited in their potential for causal claims in a life course context. From this, we initiate a discussion of the logic and practice of ‘natural experiments’ for life course research, highlighting issues of how to identify natural experiments, how to use cohort information and variation in the order and timing of life course transitions to isolate variation in exposure, how such events that alter social structures are the key to identification in causal processes of the life course and, finally, of analytic strategies for the extraction of causal conclusions from conventional statistical estimates. Through discussion of both positive and negative examples, we outline the key methodological issues in play and provide a road map of best practices. While we acknowledge that causal claims are not necessary for social explanation, our goal is to explain how causal inference can benefit life course scholarship and outline a set of practices that can complement conventional approaches in the pursuit of causal explanation in life course research.

Trajectories of Criminal Behavior Across the Life Course

2018 ◽  
pp. 96-125
Author(s):  
Julien Morizot
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Longitudinal Studies ◽  
Statistical Methods ◽  
Criminal Behavior ◽  
Developmental Trajectories ◽  
Developmental Trajectory ◽  
Criminal Career ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Individual Change ◽  
The Life Course

This chapter provides an overview of developmental-typological theories of criminal behavior best known by criminologists. These theories aim to explain heterogeneity in intra-individual change in criminal behavior across the life course by postulating developmental trajectories differing in terms of onset, variety and frequency of offending, criminal career duration, and period of desistance. The chapter outlines the most popular statistical methods for modeling developmental trajectories. It also summarizes the empirical findings from available developmental trajectory research. Overall, available longitudinal studies tend to support only some postulates of developmental-typological theories. This chapter thus proposes a number of directions for future research and provides some concluding insights.

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