Overview

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National Criminal Justice Modelling Workshop
Human Development and Crime Prevention
Ross Homel
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Some Linkages
Criminal Careers
Developmental Pathways
Child Protection/ Juvenile Justice
Child Abuse Neglect
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Increase in Child AbuseCauses of Child Cerebral
Palsy in Western Australia
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Whats got worse in Australia?(Fiona Stanley,
ICHR, WA)

• low birth weight
• neurodevelopmental disorders
• asthma
• type 1 diabetes
• chronic bowel disease
• autism
• mental health morbidities
• child abuse and neglect
• adolescent suicide
• obesity

• eating disorders
• learning disabilities
• behavioural disorders
• aggressive behaviours and violence
• school drop out and truancy
• juvenile crime
• illicit drug and alcohol use
• teenage births

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Assault Rates Across Nations1989 to 2000(Crimes
per 100 people)

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Costs
Crime costs 4 of GDP
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Five Questions Raised by the Developmental
Perspective

• 1. What is the typical course for this behaviour?
• Where does the route usually begin and end?
• When confronted with a specific offender, this
  means, what course did this persons life take
  that got him or her to this point?

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• 2. Where are the points of change?
• It is generally accepted that behaviour can be
  changed more easily in the young than in the old.
• Developmental analyses emphasise the
  significance of early experiences, but also
  recognise later transition points, times when a
  path may fork.
• At these sensitive times, people may experience
  increased risk of movement into harmful paths,
  but also may be more open to preventive
  interventions.
• At these times, also, what will matter is the
  degree of social support available in order to
  make the transition successfully.

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• 3. What conditions or events lead to this
  behaviour?
• What are the associated conditions or the
  relevant prior events (or turning points)?
• A developmental perspective focuses on the
  clusters of personal and contextual factors that
  lead onto or sustain socially acceptable or
  unacceptable patterns of behaviour.
• Some of these factors will be found in a persons
  current environment others will be found in the
  individuals earlier history.
• Earlier conditions generate strategies,
  dispositions, or expertise that influence the way
  the next event is dealt with either by the
  potential offender or by the people who are part
  of his or her context.

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• 4. What combinations of conditions make a
  difference?
• Conditions are likely to be multiple rather than
  single (that is, we seldom find one cause leading
  to one effect).
• They are also cumulative rather than one-off in
  their effects.
• Therefore of particular importance are risk
  factors that increase a persons vulnerability to
  antisocial activities, and protective factors
  that promote a persons resilience to the
  negative possibilities in difficult situations.
• The type of risk factors may not be as important
  as the total number operating in a persons life
  at a particular time.

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• 5. What are the "carrier mechanisms"?
• Developmentalists are concerned with change and
  stability over time.
• It is important to ask what carries the effects
  of something at Time 1 forward into something at
  Time 2? What accounts for continuity and change?
• People carry some hurts with them, but some
  environments also allow these problems to
  persist. Other environments facilitate
  constructive adjustment and recovery.

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Risk and Protective Factors Associated with
Anti-social and Criminal Behaviour
Community and cultural factors
Life events
Child
Family
School
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Child Risk Factors

• Prematurity
• Low birth weight
• Disability
• Prenatal brain damage
• Birth injury
• Low intelligence
• Difficult temperament
• Chronic illness
• Insecure attachment

• Poor problem solving
• Beliefs about aggression
• Attributions
• Poor social skills
• Low self esteem
• Lack of empathy
• Alienation
• Hyperactivity/disruptive behaviour
• Impulsivity

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Family Environment

• Family violence and disharmony
• Marital discord
• Disorganised
• Negative interaction/social isolation
• Large family size
• Father absence
• Long-term parental unemployment

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Child Protective Factors

• Social competence
• Social skills
• Above-average intelligence
• Attachment to family
• Empathy
• Problem solving
• Optimism

• School achievement
• Easy temperament
• Internal locus of control
• Moral beliefs
• Values
• Self-related cognitions
• Good coping style

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Association of Risk and Protective Factor Levels
with Attacked to Hurt (Past Year)
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Developmental Prevention

• Intervention early in developmental pathways that
  lead to crime and related problems,
• emphasising investment in child friendly
  institutions and communities and
• the manipulation of multiple risk and protective
  factors
• at different levels of the social ecology and
• at crucial transition points, such as around
  birth and the commencement of school.

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Pathways to Crime
Conduct problems
Individual therapy
Perspective taking, problem solving
Cognitive attributions
Marital problems Psychological problems Poor
parenting skills
Poor Parenting Harsh Inconsistent Low warmth
Poor Parenting Harsh Inconsistent Low warmth
Parenting programs
Poor social skills, rejection, conflict
Home Visiting Parenting programs
Social skills training Group based interventions
School failure Low attachment to school
School failure Low attachment to school
Family Support Services
Remedial programs Child friendly schools
Community development programs
Social Capital
Resources
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Pathways to Depression
Anxiety
Anxiety
Parenting Programs
Attachment to Family Warmth of parent-child
relationship
Attachment to Family Warmth of parent-child
relationship
Social skills training Group based interventions
Individual Group Therapy
Marital problems Psychological problems Poor
parenting skills
Loneliness Isolation
Peer Problems
School failure Low attachment to school
School failure Low attachment to school
Family Support Services
Remedial programs Child friendly schools
Home Visiting Parenting programs
Community development programs
Resources
Social Capital
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Child abuse neglect

• Maltreated children are more likely than matched
  controls to be arrested as juveniles
• Common set of risk factors for maltreatment and
  juvenile crime (eg, harsh and erratic discipline)
• Children under wardship orders very likely to end
  up in detention
• Due both to instability in placements and to
  other risk factors (eg, deviant peer groups)

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Being placed in care Some questions (Cas ONeill)

• Forms include residential care, foster care,
  kinship care, adoptive placements
• Is placement away from birth family protective or
  damaging?
• What are the relative risks or protective factors
  (for crime) of each type of care?
• Requires within system pathway analyses

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Developmental Criminology

• Explains crime in the context of the life course
• Concerned with stability and continuity over time
• Is criminal propensity set by age 5 (Gottfredson
  Hirschi - self-control theory), or are later
  life transitions and processes important?

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Age of onset
Boys
Few
Late
Violence
Delinquency
Property damage
Physical fighting
Minor aggression
Minor covert behaviour
Auth avoid
Overt
Covert
Defiance/ disobedience
Stubborn behaviour
Early
Many
Authority conflict
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Criminal careers temporal boundary concepts

• Age at onset
• Age at termination
• Duration
• Transfer/crime switching

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Criminal careers dynamic concepts

• Activation
• Acceleration
• Diversification
• Stabilisation
• Aggravation
• Escalation
• Developmental sequence

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Criminal careers dynamic concepts

• Desistance
• deceleration
• De-escalation
• Reaching a ceiling
• Specialisation

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THERE IS NOT ENOUGH CRIMINAL CAREER MODELLING
IN AUSTRALIA, ESPECIALLY RELATED TO SYSTEM
DECISION POINTS (eg, placement orders or
sentencing)