The development of antisocial behavior and crime : replication with the Montréal Cross Sectional and Longitudinal Studies

This innovative and timely work explores how the developmental criminology paradigm can be applied to understandings beyond criminal careers, to the development of more general antisocial behavior. Importantly, the rich data set from 50-years of cross sectional and longitudinal studies provides replication amongst samples, genders, generations and phases in the life span, from cohorts born in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. This work also provides a rich history about the development of the "Developmental Criminology" paradigm, drawing from developmental psychology, and life-course methodologies in Sociology. With a 50-year, multigenerational longitudinal dataset (the Montreal Two Sample Four Generational Cross sectionnal and Longitudinal Studies -MTSFGCLS) the author explores the mechanisms of official and self-reported antisocial behavior. It provides insights into not only criminal behavior, but other types of potentially problematic behavior, including drug and alcohol use, risky sexual behavior, conflict with authority and other forms of antisocial behavior; as well as their decline across the life-course. By examining the developmental mechanisms and trajectories of these behaviors, the author proposes a multidisciplinary theory to explain these phenomenons. This work will be of interested to researchers in Criminology, Sociology and Psychology, particularly within the growing area of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology, as well as related fields such as social work, public health and public policy. Marc Le Blanc is Emeritus Professor at the University of Montreal's School of Criminology and School of Psychoeducation. He served as Director of Research for Boscoville, a research and development center for adolescents with problem behavior. He has been involved in fundamental and applied research concerning juvenile delinquency for the last 50 years and in promoting a developmental approach to the study of crime. He has also worked on the ecology of delinquency in Montreal, changes in the phenomenon of delinquency over the past 50 years, the gang phenomenon, substance use and female delinquency. His work in applied criminology concerns the evaluation of treatments for juvenile delinquents and the functioning on juvenile justice. He developed and validated an instrument for the evaluation of juvenile delinquents based on his integrative theory. He has also implemented experimental differential treatments (cognitive behavioral and developmental) in secure and open units for serious delinquents. Professor Le Blanc has also been engaged in a consultative capacity to various governmental and nongovernmental organizations in Canada, America and Europe. Foreword 6 Preface 8 List of Abbreviations by Categories and Synonyms 10 Acknowledgements 12 Introduction 14 What Kind of Journey Will We Have? 14 Beyond Crime, Toward Antisocial Behavior 15 From an Epidemiological Perspective, Toward a Developmental View 16 From Replication to Reproducibility, Toward Generalizability and Universality 18 Contents 20 List of Figures 23 List of Tables 25 About the Author 29 Chapter 1: The Constructs of Antisocial Behavior and Crime: A Measurement View 30 1 Introduction 30 2 The Constructs of Antisocial Behavior 31 2.1 The Legal or Societal Construct of Antisocial Behavior 31 2.2 The Scientific Construct of Antisocial Behavior 33 3 The Measurement of Self-Reported Antisocial Behavior 34 3.1 The Spectrum of Antisocial Behaviors 34 3.2 The Metric Properties of the SRAB Scales 37 3.2.1 The Reliability of the SRAB Scales 39 3.2.2 The Validity of the SRAB Scales 41 4 A Test of the Heteromorphy of Antisocial Behavior Measures 44 5 The Empirical Structure of the Antisocial Behavior Construct 46 5.1 The Theoretical Model, What Do We Know? 47 5.2 A Test of the Antisocial Behavior Theoretical Model 48 5.3 The Generalization of the Antisocial Behavior Hierarchical Model 50 5.4 A Network View of the Patterns of Antisocial Behavior 58 6 Conclusion 61 Chapter 2: Antisocial Behavior and Crime: An Epidemiological View 63 1 Introduction 63 2 The Epidemiology of Official Antisocial Behavior and Crime Careers 65 2.1 The Official Offending Career 66 2.1.1 A Descriptive Statistic View 66 2.1.2 An Age–Crime Curve View 72 Measurement Issues with Official Offending Data Sets 73 The Shape of the Age–Crime Curve in the 1960 and 1980 Generations 74 The Variations of the Age–Crime Curves by Delinquency Status, Genders, and Types of Offending 78 2.2 The Official Problem Behavior Career 83 3 The Epidemiology of Self-Reported Antisocial Behavior 85 4 Conclusion 91 4.1 The Shape of the Age-Crime Curves 91 4.2 The Gender Gap 91 4.3 The Generation Gap 92 4.4 The Normative or Delinquent Status Gap 93 4.5 The Mix of Antisocial Behavior Gap 93 Chapter 3: The Developmental Mechanisms of Antisocial Behavior and Crime, a Process View 94 1 Introduction 94 2 The Mechanism of the Quantitative Changes in Antisocial Behavior and Crime: Activation–Deactivation 98 2.1 The Quantitative Changes During an Official Offending Career 98 2.2 The Quantitative Changes During a Self-Reported Antisocial Behavior Career 104 3 The Mechanism of Qualitative Changes in Antisocial Behavior and Crime: Aggravation–Deaggravation 107 3.1 Offenses Switching or Changes in Behavioral Mixes 109 3.2 Age at Onset–Offset Versus Seriousness 110 3.3 A Developmental Sequence or Pathway 111 3.4 The Qualitative Changes in Self-Reported Offending 112 3.5 The Qualitative Changes in Official Offense Mixes 116 3.5.1 The Sequence of Official Offense Mixes 119 3.5.2 The Uplifting and Downlifting of the Sequence of Official Offense Mixes 123 3.6 The Qualitative Changes in the Self-Reported Antisocial Behavior Mixes 124 3.6.1 The Sequence of Self-Reported Antisocial Behavior Mixes 125 3.6.2 The Uplifting and Downlifting on the Sequence of Self-Reported Antisocial Behavioral Mixes 127 4 Conclusion 130 Chapter 4: The Antisocial Behavior and Crime Autodynamic, a System View 132 1 Introduction 132 2 System Functioning, Principles, and Empirical Explorations 133 2.1 Theoretical Developmental Axioms of System Action 133 2.2 The MTSFGCLS Empirical Explorations 135 3 The Crime System Autodynamic 136 3.1 A Global Look at the Crime System 137 3.2 A Longitudinal Look at the Crime System 141 4 The Antisocial Behavior System 146 5 Conclusion 151 Chapter 5: A Course View of Antisocial Behavior and Crime 152 1 Introduction 152 2 From Criminological Typologies to Behavioral Trajectories 152 2.1 The MTSFGCLS Typologies 153 2.2 The Loeber Pathways 154 2.3 The Cambridge Classification 154 2.4 The Moffitt Developmental Taxonomy 155 2.5 The Patterson Onset Trajectories 156 3 A Multilayered Trajectories Model of Antisocial Behavior and Crime 157 4 The MTSFGCLS Trajectories of Antisocial Behavior and Crime 160 4.1 The Official Crime Trajectories 161 4.1.1 The Number of Court Males and Shape of Micro-Trajectories 161 4.1.2 The Comparison of the G60 Trajectories with Other Long-Term Studies 167 4.1.3 The G60 Offending Trajectories by Types of Offenses 170 4.1.4 From a Meta-Trajectory to Micro-Courses Through Meso-Paths 172 4.2 The Self-Reported Official Crime Trajectories 175 4.3 The Self-Reported Antisocial Behavior Trajectories 179 4.3.1 The Self-Reported Antisocial Behavior Trajectories of the Court Males 179 4.3.2 The Females Self-Reported Antisocial Behavior Trajectories 183 5 Conclusion 184 Chapter 6: Conclusion: A Journey from Exploration to Generalization and Formalization 186 1 How Should We Know About the Development of Antisocial Behavior? 186 1.1 The Future Research Design 187 1.2 Down the Road with Conceptualizations and Measurements 189 1.3 Future Replications 191 2 A Discursive and Axiomatic Theory of the Development of Antisocial Behavior 195 2.1 The Extrinsic Part of the Developmental Theory of Antisocial Behavior 195 2.1.1 Antisocial Behavior: Acts that Violate Social Norms and that Are Harmful to Others 196 2.1.2 The Antisocial Behaviors Manifest in Three Categories 196 2.1.3 The Career Developmental Parameters Are the Same for Official Crime and Self-Reported Antisocial Behavior (See Also Table 2.1) 196 2.2 The Intrinsic Content of the Developmental Theory of Female and Male Antisocial Behavior 197 2.2.1 A Gender Gap 197 2.2.2 A Normative Gap 198 2.2.3 A Generation Conundrum 198 2.2.4 An Age–Antisocial Behavior Puzzle 198 2.2.5 The Developmental Mechanisms of Antisocial Behavior 198 2.2.6 Antisocial Behavior Is a Developmental System 199 2.2.7 The Life Course Trajectories of Antisocial Behavior 200 Appendix A: The Baseline and Replication Samples of the Montréal Two Samples Four Generations Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Studies 201 The Origins of the MTSFGCLS 201 The Baseline Samples of the 1970s 203 The Replication Samples of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s 205 Appendix B: The Measurement of Official and Self-Reported Antisocial Behavior and Crime 208 Official Offenses and Problem Behaviors 208 Self-Reported Crimes 208 Self-Reported Antisocial Behaviors 212 The Format of the Questions for Each Behavior 213 The List of Antisocial Behaviors 215 The Antisocial Behavior Scales 217 Appendix C: Legal, Criminal Justice, and Sociological Changes in Québec from 1960 to 2000 218 Introduction 218 C.2. Changes in the Québec Criminal and Delinquency Laws and Their Criminal Justice Systems 218 C.3. Evolution of Juvenile and Adult Criminality Since 1960 221 C.4. Sociological Changes Over Five Decades in Québec and Montréal 222 C.4.1 Demography 223 C.4.3. Government 224 C.4.4. Family 224 C.4.5. Health 224 C.4.6. Education 224 C.4.7. Economy, Work, and Poverty 225 C.4.8. Consumption 225 C.5. Conclusion 225 References 226 Index 240