7.4 Developmental and Life Course Perspective
The developmental life course perspective looks at criminal behavior over the course of someone’s lifetime. According to this perspective, criminality cannot be understood by studying people at a single point in time or by assuming that people are unchanging. Instead, to truly understand criminal behavior, it is important to follow individuals over time. This perspective seeks to understand why offending starts in the first place (i.e., onset), why it continues or even escalates in severity or frequency (i.e., persistence), and why it declines or slows down (i.e., desistance) at different stages of the life course. In this manner, we can understand the life events and turning points that affect both short- and long-term patterns of criminal behavior. This perspective emphasizes a person’s individual development and life history.
Learn More: Celebrity Case Studies
When someone is famous for something they do well as an adult, it is easy to forget that their life was not always this way. Quite a few celebrities got in trouble with the law when they were younger and made significant changes as they grew older to become the people we know them as today. To illustrate this point, let’s look at Lindsey Lohan, Mark Wahlberg, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (figure 7.4).
Lindsey Lohan went from child star and model to county jail and probation. Lohan got her first modeling contract at 3 years old and her first acting job at age 10, and she has been in the public eye ever since. She moved to Los Angeles alone at age 15. There, she faced several challenging years battling an eating disorder and drug and alcohol addiction. She was repeatedly arrested for driving under the influence, cocaine possession, theft, and driving on a suspended license. Lohan served multiple court-ordered stints in rehabilitation facilities over a span of 6 years and remained on probation for even longer. After roughly 8 years of legal troubles, Lohan moved overseas and worked to treat her substance abuse disorder. She has since returned to acting.
Mark Wahlberg has a history of hostile behavior and hate crimes. As a teenager, he had more than one lawsuit filed against him, including a civil rights lawsuit for harassing Black children with racial slurs while throwing rocks at them. In the late 1980s, he pled guilty to assault after he nearly killed two men, one of whom he attacked while using anti-Asian slurs. The victims of Wahlberg’s actions have since been interviewed and have different opinions on whether or not he deserves forgiveness. Ultimately though, Wahlberg’s criminal past has had little impact on his career as an actor and business owner.
Dwayne Johnson, better known as “The Rock,” turned his juvenile arrests for fighting, theft, and check fraud—all of which happened before age 17—into a career that allowed him to build on his strengths and support others to do the same. Johnson was noticed and recruited by his high school foot