Does Childhood Social Disadvantage and Social Adversity Set People on Particular Pathways in Crime?

Abstract

Abstract Do people’s childhood conditions and experiences set them onto particular pathways in crime? This chapter examines the extent to which childhood experiences of childhood social disadvantage and social adversity predict the development of crime propensities and criminogenic activity fields, and related criminal careers. The fact that social disadvantage is at best only weakly associated with crime involvement is a consistent but provocative finding in criminological research. Seeking to better understand if and how childhood experiences of social disadvantage and social adversity set people on particular trajectories of crime involvement, this chapter examines relationships between these experiences and trajectories of crime propensity, criminogenic exposure, and crime across adolescence and into young adulthood. It delves into how changing social relationships with family, peers, and schools during this time period are associated with changes in crime propensity and criminogenic exposure, and subsequently crime involvement. It finds that a slightly elevated proportion of people who experience childhood disadvantage and social adversity develop heightened trajectories of crime propensity, criminogenic exposure, and subsequently crime involvement, but most people do not, regardless of their experiences of childhood disadvantage and social adversity. Analyses highlight some differences in the social experiences of participants’ following an adolescence-limited crime trajectory that may have implications for understanding why their crime involvement drops so dramatically after age 16.