Moffitt’s Developmental Taxonomy of Antisocial Behavior Research Paper

This sample Moffitt’s Developmental Taxonomy of Antisocial Behavior Research Paper is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need help writing your assignment, please use our research paper writing service and buy a paper on any topic at affordable price. Also check our tips on how to write a research paper, see the lists of criminal justice research paper topics, and browse research paper examples.

This research paper provides an overview of Moffitt’s developmental taxonomy, highlights key findings from subsequent research, identifies critical challenges to the taxonomy, and outlines several important directions for future research. The paper concludes by noting that some of the taxonomy’s key hypotheses have been supported by empirical research, while other findings have presented challenges to the taxonomy.

Introduction

The age/crime relationship is one of the brute facts of criminology, which any theory of crime must be able to explain. The curve evidences a slow rise during early adolescence, peaks in mid to late adolescence, and then decreases rapidly in early adulthood. The fact of the curve is unassailable; however, what is especially contentious is the reason(s) underlying this consistently documented correlate of crime. One theory in particular, Terrie Moffitt’s (1993) developmental taxonomy, seeks to develop a better understanding of the age/crime relationship by focusing on the mixture of two distinct groups of offenders, whose offender styles combine to represent the overall aggregate relationship – yet with unique age/crime curves. This research paper provides a background description of Moffitt’s theory, provides a very broad review of key findings, identifies controversies that exist with respect to the theory and empirical research, highlights open questions, and provides an overall conclusion.

Background Description

In her original statement of the developmental taxonomy, Moffitt suggested that the age/crime relationship could be summarized by the existence of two distinct types of offenders, each of whom evince unique age/crime patterns and who offend for distinct reasons. The first group, adolescence-limited (AL), is comprised by a large segment of the offending population who constrict their antisocial behavior to the adolescent time period. For ALs, delinquency is a function of two features of adolescence: the “maturity gap” and the peer social context. The maturity gap recognizes that adolescents biologically resemble adults but are not socially or legally recognized as adults and are consequently denied most adult privileges and responsibilities. Young people’s recognition of this mismatch between their social maturity and their biological maturity leads to a feeling of strain that is also characteristic of their similarly situated peers. Because peers are an exceedingly influential socializing agent during adolescence, and because all ALs are negotiating the adolescent period and experiencing the same sets of strain, they encounter potential role models in other older-aged peers who have alleviated their sense of strain by becoming involved in delinquent activities that bring them forbidden adult pleasures. Life-course-persistent age peers, as will be seen below, also constitute delinquent role models. Thus, ALs engage in delinquent activities that resemble adult status such as smoking, drinking, sexual activity, and theft (so as to obtain economic resources and goods) in order to alleviate their strain and acquire a sense of being recognized and treated like adults. As they exit out of adolescence and enter emerging and early adulthood, and because they are now legally permitted all of the things they once coveted, most but not all AL offenders cease their antisocial behavior. It is expected that most ALs will successfully transition into adult roles and responsibilities and leave their antisocial ways behind. However, a subset of ALs may encounter snares as a result of their antisocial behavior, such as drug addiction, school dropout, or a criminal record, that may entrap them in a delinquent lifestyle and delay desistance.

Unlike their AL counterparts, LCP offenders comprise a very small group of individuals (<10 % of males), who exhibit antisocial tendencies and behaviors very early in the life course (i.e., early childhood). The antisocial repertoire of LCPs is of a varied nature, chronic, persistent, and serious and spans distinct phases of the life course (childhood – adolescence – adulthood) and continues largely unabated via different manifestations and across various life domains well into adulthood. Unlike the more social origins of antisocial behavior among ALs, LCP-style antisocial behavior originates from compromised neuropsychological development that is exacerbated by disadvantaged familial and economic environments. Specifically, LCPs tend to be born with neurodevelopmental problems of weak cognitive abilities and low self-control that exert negative effects on their immediate caretakers. If caretakers are unskilled at parenting, these early deficiencies are not addressed nor corrected. As a result, LCPs become involved from early life in a series of antisocial behaviors that eventually produce negative outcomes in virtually all aspects of their lives, including failures in education, interpersonal relationships, and employment. Thus, their antisocial behavior gradually becomes part of their overall personality. This developmental process of cumulative continuity results in adverse reactions by prosocial agents and produces barriers to, or knives off, conventional opportunities for success. The neglected injurious childhoods, poor neurocognitive abilities, and resultant antisocial lifestyles of LCPs limit their prospects for change.

Although Moffitt’s taxonomy focused on two distinct groups of offenders, it also describes a third group of young people who stand in stark contrast to the more normative, adaptational ALs: a group of teens who abstain from delinquency. Moffitt views these “abstainers” as somewhat extraordinary because they eschew delinquency during a period of the life course when delinquency is the norm. Abstainers are viewed as encountering barriers that preclude their foray into delinquency, either through structural barriers that prevent them from learning about delinquency, no maturity gap because of early access to adult roles, or personal characteristics unappealing to other teens that cause them to be excluded from teen social group activities.

Any serious contender for a theory of delinquency is obliged to address two of the most salient facts about delinquency: sex variation and ethnic-minority variation. The original statement of Moffitt’s taxonomy asserted that the theory describes the behavior of females as well as it describes the behavior of males. Thus, it is important to discuss Moffitt’s (1994, pp. 39–40) specific expectations of the role of gender in the taxonomy:

The crime rate for females is lower than for males. In this developmental taxonomy, much of the gender difference in crime is attributed to sex differences in the risk factors for life-course persistent antisocial behavior. Little girls are less likely than little boys to encounter all of the putative initial links in the causal chain for life-course persistent antisocial development. Research has shown that girls have lower rates than boys of symptoms of nervous system dysfunction, difficult temperament, late verbal and motor milestones, hyperactivity, learning disabilities, reading failure, and childhood conduct problems.. . Most girls lack the personal diathesis elements of the evocative, reactive, and proactive person/environment interactions that initiate and maintain life-course persistent antisocial behavior.

Adolescence-limited delinquency, on the other hand, is open to girls as well as to boys. According to the theory advanced here, girls, like boys, should begin delinquency soon after puberty, to the extent that they (1) have access to antisocial models, and (2) perceive the consequences of delinquency as reinforcing.. . However, exclusion from gender segregated male antisocial groups may cut off opportunities for girls to learn delinquent behaviors.. . Girls are physically more vulnerable than boys to risk of personal victimization (e.g., pregnancy or injury from dating violence) if they affiliate with life-course persistent antisocial males. Thus, lack of access to antisocial models and perceptions of serious personal risk may dampen the vigor of girls’ delinquent involvement somewhat. Nonetheless, girls should engage in adolescence-limited delinquency in significant numbers….

The original theory thus proposed that (a) fewer females than males would become delinquent (and conduct disordered) overall and that (b) within delinquents the percentage who are LCP would be larger among males than females. Following from this, (c) the majority of delinquent females will be of the AL type, and further, (d) their delinquency will have the same causes as AL males’ delinquency (Moffitt 2006).

Moffitt’s (1994, p. 39) taxonomic writings also anticipated that the taxonomy would apply to socially disadvantaged ethnic-minority populations as well as to whites:

“In the United States, the crime rate for black Americans is higher than the crime rate for whites. The race difference may be accounted for by a relatively higher prevalence of both life-course persistent and adolescence-limited subtypes among contemporary African-Americans. Life-course persistent anti-socials might be anticipated at elevated rates among black Americans because the putative root causes of this type are elevated by institutionalized prejudice and by poverty. Among poor black families, prenatal care is less available, infant nutrition is poorer, and the incidence of exposure to toxic and infectious agents is greater, placing infants at risk for the nervous system problems that research has shown to interfere with prosocial child development. To the extent that family bonds have been loosened and poor black parents are under stress,.. .and to the extent that poor black children attend disadvantaged schools.. ., for poor black children the snowball of cumulative continuity may begin rolling earlier, and it may roll faster downhill. In addition, adolescence-limited crime is probably elevated among black youths as compared to white youths in contemporary America. If racially-segregated communities provide greater exposure to life-course-persistent role models, then circumstances are ripe for black teens with no prior behavior problems to mimic delinquent ways in a search for status and respect. Moreover, black young people spend more years in the maturity gap, on average, than whites because ascendancy to valued adult roles and privileges comes later, if at all. Legitimate desirable jobs are closed to many young black men; they do not often shift from having “little to lose” to having a “stake in conformity” overnight by leaving schooling and entering a good job. Indeed, the biological maturity gap is perhaps best seen as an instigator of adolescent-onset delinquency for black youths, with an economic maturity gap maintaining offending into adulthood.”

Thus, the taxonomy expected that both LCP and AL processes should work the same way within African-American and white American groups, but any excess of offending among poor African-American youth could be attributed to an excess of the risk factors for both delinquent subtypes (Moffitt 2006).

The original theoretical taxonomy asserted that two main trajectories of offenders (LCP and AL) account for much of the age/crime relationship and thus warrant the lion’s share of attention by theory and research. As a result of subsequent empirical studies, a small but additional group of offenders have been identified that does not fit either of the other two offender groups. First identified in trajectory analyses of a British cohort (Nagin et al. 1995), this third group of offenders has been labeled “low-level chronics” because they have been found to offend persistently but at a low rate from childhood to adolescence or from adolescence to adulthood.

State Of The Art

There has been a very active set of studies seeking to explore various aspects of Moffitt’s developmental taxonomy and the results from this research have been effectively summarized in several publications (see Moffitt 2006; Piquero and Moffitt 2005). Here, a very brief overview of the findings regarding key hypotheses from the taxonomy is presented.

Since the publication of the taxonomy in 1993, it can be stated with a good degree of certainty that the hypothesized LCP antisocial individual exists, at least during the first three decades of life. Near universal agreement about this group has emerged from all studies that have applied trajectory-detection analyses to a representative cohort sample having longitudinal repeated measures of antisocial behavior (Piquero 2008). In fact, it remains the case that no research that has looked for a persistent antisocial group has failed to find it. A number of other postulates from the taxonomy have received empirical support, ranging from robust to modest, but overall they appear to be supported and are listed here.

First, there is good evidence that LCP antisocial behavior emerges from early neurodevelopmental and family-adversity risk factors, but AL delinquency does not. Second, many studies show genetic etiological processes contribute more to LCP than AL antisocial development. Third, longitudinal follow-ups reveal that childhood-limited aggressive children, if followed to adulthood, become low-level chronic criminal offenders with personality disorders. Fourth, there is some evidence that abstainers from delinquency are rare individuals, who become unpopular with teen peers. Fifth, LCP and AL delinquents have been shown to develop different personality structures by adulthood. Sixth, LCP development is differentially associated with serious offending and violence in adulthood in all studies. Seventh, epidemiological studies confirm that LCP antisocial development is almost exclusively male, whereas most female antisocial behavior is of the AL type.

Some findings have received beginning support, but more research is needed. For example, AL antisocial behavior is influenced by the maturity gap between childhood and adulthood and by social mimicry of antisocial role models. Also, childhood-onset antisocial behavior persists at least into middle adulthood, whereas adolescentonset antisocial behavior desists in young adulthood. Recent studies report that LCP antisocial individuals are at high risk in midlife for poor physical health, cardiovascular disease, and early disease morbidity and mortality (see Odgers et al. 2007; Piquero et al. 2010, 2011).

Some predictions from the taxonomy have received only minimal empirical attention. For example, according to the theory, AL offenders must rely on peer support for crime, but LCP offenders should be willing to offend alone (although in adolescence they serve as magnets for less expert offenders). Additionally, “snares” (such as a criminal record, incarceration, addiction, or truncated education without credentials) should explain variation in the age at desistence from crime during the adult age period, particularly among AL offenders. Lastly, the two groups should react differently to turning point opportunities: ALs should get good partners and jobs that help them to desist from crime, whereas LCPs should selectively get undesirable partners and jobs and in turn expand their repertoire into domestic abuse and workplace crime. These predictions need testing.

Possible Controversies In The Literature

As is true of many theories of antisocial behavior, results from empirical research provide some challenges and controversies for the original statement of the theory. Here, the single most important challenge to the taxonomy is highlighted. Two life-course criminology theorists and researchers, Robert Sampson and John Laub, have called into the question not only whether there are indeed LCP and AL offenders and whether such groups could be prospectively identified in childhood, but also whether the two groups follow their hypothesized crime trajectories.

Sampson and Laub (2003) conducted a follow-up study of a sample of 500 adolescent male inmates from the 1940s, covering the period from age 7 years to the end of each offender’s life up to age 70 years. Sampson and Laub reported two findings from their analysis that challenged the taxonomy. First, they found that almost all of the men desisted from criminal offending sooner or later, and second, they found heterogeneity in adulthood crime career patterns within the sample of adolescent inmates, and they found that this heterogeneity was not explained by measures of childhood risk.

Moffitt (2006) has observed that Sampson and Laub’s findings are potentially premature and perhaps overstated for several reasons. First, virtually all of the men in the sample might have been regarded as candidates for the LCP subtype (i.e., they had been incarcerated as young adolescents as inmates in reform schools; they had backgrounds of marked family adversity, social disadvantage, and childhood antisocial conduct, low IQ, and an early first arrest). Second, Moffitt argued that Sampson and Laub misrepresented the taxonomy’s prediction because they set up a “straw” prediction to test, i.e., that LCP offenders would continue committing crimes at the same high rate from adolescence through old age, and to their deaths. Moffitt’s taxonomy had not implied this expectation, largely because of the well-known population-wide process of aging out of crime in midlife. The taxonomy claims that LCP-type delinquents would continue offending well beyond the age when most young men in their cohort would ordinarily have stopped offending and ought to retain detectable features of an antisocial personality into late life (such as lying, irresponsibility, or callous attitudes), but perhaps not criminal offending itself.

With respect to Sampson and Laub’s second finding of heterogeneity in adulthood crime career patterns, this again is viewed by Moffitt as a “straw man.” The alternative would be that males who spent their youth and early adulthood on the LCP pathway can show no variation in subsequent offending during midlife and aging, over a span of many years. Such uniformity is implausible, and no such prediction was made in the taxonomy. As Sampson and Laub argue, child and family characteristics were unable to distinguish between the different offender trajectories they identified. But Moffitt contends that this failure of discrimination is not unexpected in the sample they studied, because the childhood backgrounds of the males were almost uniformly high risk. At the same time, this particular result suggests that to the extent that different crime careers emerge during midlife within a group of LCP men, concurrent life experiences must account for the divergence. This would constitute an interesting extension to the taxonomy: heterogeneity within LCPs in the ways they age out of crime. In any case, the main point Sampson and Laub made was that it is a risky business to predict that a child is doomed to a life of crime, and thus early identification advocates may have gone too far. Moffitt’s work provides consensus on this important point about potential misuse of the taxonomy.

Open Questions

Although there has been extensive research into Moffitt’s taxonomy, open questions remain. Here, a few of these questions that are important for subsequent inquiry are provided.

First, there have been few empirical investigations regarding the extent to which the taxonomy explains the association of key demographics of crime, namely, that of race and gender. Although Moffitt anticipated that the theory would explain the antisocial behavior of males and females as well as whites and socially disadvantaged nonwhites (especially African-Americans), the lack of data and requisite measures of key predictors has prohibited extensive analyses on these associations.

Second, while Moffitt clearly advanced some sort of neurocognitive deficit among LCP offenders, she also noted the relevance of a sociobiological disjuncture to predict patterns of offending among AL offenders: the maturity gap. Thus, the role of biology and genetics, especially in concert with social environments, is an important aspect of Moffitt’s taxonomy. Yet, due to data constraints, there has been little investigation of the taxonomy’s implications about joint effects of biological and social factors and the extent to which such factors help explain variation across offenders and in offending.

Third, there has been virtually no research exploring the decision-making process across the two offender types. How do LCPs weigh the risks and rewards of offending at the point of decision-making? Do AL offenders consider the costs more than their LCP counterparts? Do AL offenders alter their decision-making criteria as they enter adulthood? Different personality styles and different cognitive abilities characterize the two groups, which imply that they should differ on their typical decisionmaking strategies too. Integration of research from deterrence/rational choice would provide a good extension of Moffitt’s theory to consider situational factors.

Conclusions

Moffitt’s developmental taxonomy was originally advanced as a framework to help explain and understand the age/crime relationship. Since its publication in 1993, it has generated much interest and research. Some findings have been consistent with some of the key, original hypotheses, some findings have pointed to important revisions needed to improve the fit between the taxonomy and empirical reality, and some findings have brought critical challenges to various aspects of the taxonomy. All three kinds of findings are important as the empirical knowledge base accumulates with respect to the taxonomy and its predictions. Continued research – especially with respect to some of the understudied and unresolved questions – will permit a more concrete statement about how well the taxonomy explains criminology’s most basic facts.

Bibliography:

Nagin DS, Farrington DP, Moffitt TE (1995) Life-course trajectories of different types of offenders. Criminology 33:111–139
Moffitt TE (1993) Adolescence-limited and life-coursepersistent antisocial behavior: a developmental taxonomy. Psychol Rev 100:674–701
Moffitt TE (1994) Natural histories of delinquency. In: Cross-national longitudinal research on human development and criminal behavior. Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp 3–61
Moffitt TE (2006) Life-course-persistent versus adolescence-limited antisocial behavior. In: Cicchetti D, Cohen DJ (eds) Developmental psychopathology, vol 3: risk, disorder, and adaptation, 2nd edn. Wiley, Hoboken, pp 570–598
Moffitt TE, Caspi A, Rutter M, Silva PA (2001) Sex differences in antisocial behaviour. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Odgers CL, Caspi A, Broadbent JM, Dickson N, Hancox RJ, Harrington HL, Poulton R, Sears MR, Thomson WM, Moffitt TE (2007) Prediction of differential adult health burden by conduct problem subtypes in males. Arch Gen Psychiatry 64: 476–484
Piquero AR (2008) Taking stock of developmental trajectories of criminal activity over the life course. In: Lieberman AM (ed) The long view of crime: a synthesis of longitudinal research. Springer, New York, pp 23–78
Piquero AR, Moffitt TE (2005) Explaining the facts of crime: how the developmental taxonomy replies to Farrington’s invitation. In: Farrington DP (ed) Integrated developmental & life-course theories of offending: advances in criminological theory. Transaction, New Brunswick, pp 51–72
Piquero AR, Farrington DP, Nagin DS, Moffitt TE (2010) Trajectories of offending and their relation to life failure in late middle age: findings from the Cambridge study in delinquent development. J Res Crime Delinq 47:151–173
Piquero AR, Shepherd I, Shepherd J, Farrington DP (2011) Impact of offender trajectories on health: disability, hospitalization, and death by middle age in the Cambridge study in delinquent development. Criminal Behav Ment Health 21: 189–201
Sampson RJ, Laub JH (2003) Life-course desisters? Trajectories of crime among delinquent boys followed to age 70. Criminology 41:555–592