general theory of crime (GTC) Gottfredson and Hirschi's developmental theory that links crime to impulsivity and a lack of self-control. self-control. Refers to a person's ability to exercise restraint and control over his or her feelings, emotions, reactions, and behaviors.
Discuss the history of and influences on developmental theory. The developmental theory of criminality looks at the onset, continuity, and termination of a criminal career.
life course theory. Theory that focuses on changes in criminality over the life course brought about by shifts in experience and life events. propensity theory. The view that a stable unchanging feature, characteristic, property, or condition, such as defective intelligence or impulsive personality, makes some people crime prone. latent trait.
latent trait. A stable feature, characteristic, property, or condition, such as defective intelligence or impulsive personality, that makes some people crime prone over the life course. trajectory theory.
Antisocial behaviors that cluster together, including family dysfunction, substance abuse, smoking, precocious sexuality and early pregnancy, educational underachievement, suicide attempts, sensation seeking, and unemployment, as well as criminality. age-graded theory.
age-graded theory. A state dependence theory formulated by Sampson and Laub that assumes that the causal association between early delinquent offending and later adult deviant behavior involves the quality of relationships encountered at different times in human development. social capital.
An impulsive person lacks close attention to details, has organizational problems, and is distracted and forgetful. Criminals are impulsive risk takers. authority conflict pathway. Pathway to deviance that begins at an early age with stubborn behavior and leads to defiance and then to authority avoidance.