Intergenerational transmission of criminal behaviour: Conviction trajectories of fathers and their children

Date01 March 2012
Published date01 March 2012
DOI10.1177/1477370811422801
Subject MatterArticles
/tmp/tmp-17YpQ3kwjh7WgE/input 422801EUCXXX10.1177/1477370811422801Besemer and FarringtonEuropean Journal of Criminology
Article
European Journal of Criminology
9(2) 120 –141
Intergenerational
© The Author(s) 2012
Reprints and permission: sagepub.
transmission of criminal
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DOI: 10.1177/1477370811422801
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behaviour: Conviction
trajectories of fathers
and their children
Sytske Besemer and David P. Farrington
University of Cambridge, UK
Abstract
This article investigates father and offspring criminal careers by employing the semi-parametric,
group-based trajectories methodology. The findings demonstrate that children of sporadic
and chronic offenders have significantly more convictions than children of non-offenders.
However, contrary to expectations based on taxonomic and intergenerational theories,
chronic offending fathers do not have more chronic offending children than sporadic fathers.
The results demonstrate strong intergenerational transmission of criminal behaviour, but it is
the fathers having a conviction rather than their conviction trajectory that is related to offspring
convictions.
Keywords
group-based trajectory modelling, intergenerational transmission, longitudinal studies, offspring
offending, parental criminality
Introduction
Children whose parents exhibit criminal behaviour have a higher risk of becoming crimi-
nal themselves (Farrington, 2011; Thornberry, 2009). Criminal parents appear to be the
strongest family factor predicting offending (Farrington, 2011). It is still unclear why this
Corresponding author:
Ms Sytske Besemer, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge
CB3 9DA, UK
Email: sb637@cam.ac.uk

Besemer and Farrington
121
happens. Most studies investigating intergenerational transmission simply link any
lifetime offending of the parent to any lifetime offending of the child. In order to inves-
tigate what explains intergenerational transmission, however, it is important to examine
both the timing of parental criminality as well as the intensity. Not only the fact that
parents have a conviction, but criminal career parameters such as the age of onset, peak
offending age and conviction frequency might be important in explaining transmission
of criminal behaviour to children. This article aims to explore the intergenerational
transmission of criminal behaviour by investigating specifically the timing and volume
of criminal behaviour in parents and children by employing the semi-parametric, group-
based trajectories methodology (Nagin, 2005).
Farrington (2011) described six explanations for the intergenerational transmission of
criminal behaviour: intergenerational exposure to multiple risk factors, mediation
through environmental risk factors, teaching and co-offending, genetic mechanisms,
assortative mating1 and official (police and justice) bias. These explanations are not
mutually exclusive and they are empirically intertwined; a combination of these mecha-
nisms could explain intergenerational transmission. Exactly which of these mechanisms
is responsible for intergenerational transmission has not been assessed conclusively.
Based on these mechanisms, however, one would expect intergenerational transmission
to be stronger for more persistent offenders. For example, if social learning were the
mechanism responsible for transmission, children whose parents are more frequent
offenders would have an increased risk of offending themselves. The social learning
mechanism explains transmission through direct and mutual influences of family mem-
bers on each other; the parent is a social role model for the children (Bandura, 1973,
1977). Moreover, according to Sutherland’s Differential Association Theory, people will
commit delinquent acts when they have learned more motivations to break rather than to
follow the law (Sutherland and Cressey, 1955). When parents are more frequent offend-
ers, children have more opportunities to observe and imitate their parents’ delinquent
behaviour and motivations and thus one would expect more offspring crime. Similarly,
one would expect more official bias, a stronger biological basis and more risk factors
when parents are more persistent offenders. Thornberry (2005) also hypothesizes that
more frequent and persistent offenders will transmit criminal behaviour to their children
more strongly. Parents’ delinquency has a strong effect on their own development, transi-
tion into adult roles, parenting styles and thereby the effectiveness of their parenting,
which in turn will increase the risk that their children will develop criminal behaviour.
Apart from studying the intensity of parents’ offending, it is important to consider the
timing. Deviant behaviour peaks in adolescence (Piquero et al., 2007) and it is quite
common to display some antisocial behaviour during this period. It is, however, a sign of
greater deviance if such behaviour continues after adolescence or starts in adulthood.
Moffitt (1993) describes this as adolescence-limited versus life-course persistent offend-
ers. According to Moffitt, many adolescents display antisocial behaviour to bridge a
temporary ‘maturity gap’ (1993: 674). They actually mimic the behaviour of life-course
persistents offenders, who have been displaying antisocial behaviour since they were
much younger. Moffitt (1993) states that life-course-persistents’ antisocial behaviour has
an early onset and will continue until much later in life owing to biological and neu-
ropsychological problems. Her theory is linked to ideas of grouping offenders according

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European Journal of Criminology 9(2)
to different life-course trajectories (Nagin et al., 1995; Nagin and Land, 1993). Depending
on the population studied, three to six groups of offenders have been identified: one
group will never be convicted, one or more groups will display antisocial behaviour only
during adolescence (the earlier mentioned adolescence-limiteds), one or more groups
will exhibit delinquent behaviour throughout their lives (either low- or high-level
chronics) and there might be a late-onset group of offenders (Blokland et al. 2005;
Fergusson et al., 2000; Nagin et al., 1995; Nagin and Land, 1993; Piquero 2008; Van der
Geest et al., 2009; Wiesner and Windle, 2004).
It is important to deal with behavioural heterogeneity that might exist in a population
(Piquero et al., 2001). Different groups of people might follow different patterns of
criminal behaviour. These various developmental pathways might require different
etiological explanations. Farrington (1999: 156) states that ‘most prior criminal career
research treats offenders as homogeneous, but different types of people may have dif-
ferent types of careers. . . . Research is needed on what are the most useful typologies
of offenders, and on their different developmental pathways to criminal careers.’
Similarly, intergenerational transmission might be different for parents with differ-
ent criminal behaviour trajectories. For example, based on Moffitt’s theory (1993), one
would expect intergenerational transmission to be stronger for life-course-persistent
than for adolescence-limited parents for three reasons. First, her theory explains life-
course-persistents’ antisocial behaviour as having a biological origin and this hereditary
basis could be passed on to children. Some studies (Waldman et al., 1995, in Rhee and
Waldman, 2002) indeed found that antisocial behaviour that is earlier in onset is more
heritable, but others did not (Slutske et al., 1997). Second, a life-course-persistent par-
ent will display more delinquent behaviour and will therefore be a stronger criminal
role model for children according to social learning theories. Third, as mentioned
before, police and justice bodies will be more strongly biased against families with life-
course-persistent offenders. With life-course-persistent parents we thus expect a
stronger nurture as well as nature base of this behaviour and therefore a stronger trans-
mission impact.
By investigating whether intergenerational transmission is different for people
whose parents have different conviction trajectories, this article aims to link research
into criminal careers and life-course trajectories with the study of intergenerational
transmission. West and Farrington (1977) previously studied the impact of the number
of parental convictions in the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development. They
found that fathers with only one conviction and fathers with two or more convictions
had the same proportion of convicted sons. However, they did not examine the trajec-
tory of these convictions. Previous research in intergenerational transmission often
relates any lifetime offending by the parent to any lifetime offending by the child
(for example, Farrington et al., 2001; Rowe and Farrington, 1997; Thornberry, 2005;
Thornberry et al., 2003). An exception is the study by Van de Rakt et al. (2008), who
investigated the trajectories of both parents and children. They found that children
whose fathers belong to a more persistent trajectory group are more likely also to be in
such a trajectory group. Slutske et al. (1997) also found that persistent antisocial behav-
iour is more heritable than antisocial behaviour that is limited to either childhood or
adulthood.2 Van de Rakt et al. (2008), however, do not test whether the relationship ...

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