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Taking Stock: The Status of Criminological Theory: Advances in Criminological Theory: Volume 15

A Review of Research on the Taxonomy of Life-Course Persistent Versus Adolescence-Limited Antisocial Behavior

Publication ,  Chapter
Moffitt, TE
January 1, 2017

This chapter reviews ten years of research into a developmental taxonomy of antisocial behavior that proposed two primary hypothetical prototypes: life-course persistent versus adolescence-limited offenders. According to the taxonomic theory, life-course persistent offenders’ antisocial behavior has its origins in the neurodevelopmental processes beginning in childhood and continuing persistently thereafter. In contrast, adolescence-limited offenders’ antisocial behavior has its origins in social processes beginning in adolescence, and desists in young adulthood. According to the theory, life-course persistent antisocial individuals are few, persistent, and pathological. Adolescence-limited antisocial individuals are common, relatively transient, and near normative. The chapter shows that the adolescence-limited path is more strongly associated with delinquent peers, as compared against the life-course persistent path. However, one study that traced peer-affiliation trajectories concluded that peers were as influential for childhood-onset persistent offenders as for adolescent-onset offenders. The most direct test of the adolescence-limited etiological hypothesis was carried out in the Youth in Transition Survey of 2, 000 males.

Duke Scholars

DOI

Publication Date

January 1, 2017

Volume

15

Start / End Page

277 / 312
 

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Moffitt, T. E. (2017). A Review of Research on the Taxonomy of Life-Course Persistent Versus Adolescence-Limited Antisocial Behavior. In Taking Stock: The Status of Criminological Theory: Advances in Criminological Theory: Volume 15 (Vol. 15, pp. 277–312). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315130620-11
Moffitt, T. E. “A Review of Research on the Taxonomy of Life-Course Persistent Versus Adolescence-Limited Antisocial Behavior.” In Taking Stock: The Status of Criminological Theory: Advances in Criminological Theory: Volume 15, 15:277–312, 2017. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315130620-11.
Moffitt TE. A Review of Research on the Taxonomy of Life-Course Persistent Versus Adolescence-Limited Antisocial Behavior. In: Taking Stock: The Status of Criminological Theory: Advances in Criminological Theory: Volume 15. 2017. p. 277–312.
Moffitt, T. E. “A Review of Research on the Taxonomy of Life-Course Persistent Versus Adolescence-Limited Antisocial Behavior.” Taking Stock: The Status of Criminological Theory: Advances in Criminological Theory: Volume 15, vol. 15, 2017, pp. 277–312. Scopus, doi:10.4324/9781315130620-11.
Moffitt TE. A Review of Research on the Taxonomy of Life-Course Persistent Versus Adolescence-Limited Antisocial Behavior. Taking Stock: The Status of Criminological Theory: Advances in Criminological Theory: Volume 15. 2017. p. 277–312.

DOI

Publication Date

January 1, 2017

Volume

15

Start / End Page

277 / 312