Hello Dr. Beaver and Class,
According to Terri Moffit, Adolescent-limited criminals commit crime because they are frustrated with the disjuncture of being a biologically mature adult but being restricted from adult like activities. This is called a maturity gap, but I sometimes think of it as being life course limbo because you are not yet an adult but not a child anymore. Also in the book, the author states that the only thing that separates early development from later development is sexual/biological maturation. The period of human development called adolescence is a strictly western culture concept primarily developed to keep youths in school and out of formal work environment. If Moffit's theory about the reason for adolescent-limited offending is true, then is the whole concept adolescence partly to blame for some of the crime committed by these adolescent-limited offenders. Since the author states that other cultures go straight from child to adult that then is no time period in the life course where they would feel the effects of the maturity gap. The age at which we acknowledge adulthood is really an arbitrary based on no biological or physiological factors because if it was, wouldn't adulthood begin at about age 25 when the prefrontal cortex is fully formed and we are "mature" enough in our decision making skills so handle the biological and physiological changes taking place in our body. So basically our societal norms might be in part the cause of some criminal behavior.
Well I think delinquent and criminal behavior begin to emerge at adolescence is because of the accessibility to it. The personality and behavioral characteristics have always been there but as an adolescent you are allowed more freedom to exercise those behaviors. However, adolescent lack the brain development to exercise good judgment when faced with tough decisions concerning delinquent behavior and criminality. This is because their prefrontal cortex isn't fully...