Everyone knows that poverty and crime are linked, but the exact mechanism remains stubbornly unclear. Most serious offenders grew up disadvantaged, yet most disadvantaged young people never become persistent criminals—a puzzle that criminological theory has failed to explain. This research aims to solve that puzzle by testing a new idea: that disadvantage doesn’t directly cause crime, but instead funnels young people into environments—schools, neighbourhoods, peer groups—that make criminal behaviour more likely. Using unique longitudinal data from the Peterborough Adolescent and Young Adult Development Study (PADS+), the team will track how adolescents’ daily lives differ by socioeconomic background, and whether those differences explain who offends and who does not. If the hypothesis holds, it would shift crime prevention away from simply addressing poverty and toward reshaping the contexts that disadvantaged young people are selected into. That could help policymakers design interventions that interrupt the pipeline from disadvantage to serious offending—without assuming that disadvantage itself is destiny.
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One of the most academically and publically discussed factors in crime causation is the role of social disadvantage (a comparative lack of social and economic resources). In fact, it is difficult to imagine any criminological topic that is more debated than that of the extent and nature of the relationship between disadvantage and crime. However, the link between social disadvantage and crime is surprisingly poorly researched and understood and remains a key criminological puzzle. For example, one of the most (as yet) inexplicable aspects of this relationship is that while most persistent and serious offenders have grown up in disadvantaged circumstances, most people who grow up in disadvantaged circumstances do not turn to a life of persistent and serious crime. In the proposed research we aim to advance knowledge about this central social problem by empirically exploring (using new innovative methods and unique data) and analysing (using new integrative theory) the role of social disadvantage in crime causation. The central thesis to be analysed and tested is that social disadvantage affects people's crime involvement and criminal careers primarily through processes of social and self-selection which influence people's level of exposure to criminogenic developmental and action contexts. We will also explore and analyse, against this backdrop of the disadvantage-crime nexus, young people's experiences of and attitudes towards the criminal justice system (e.g., police, youth offending teams, courts, probation). The overall aim of the proposed research is to produce a comprehensive study and analysis of the link between social disadvantage and crime in adolescence and young adulthood. In the proposed research we aim to apply and further develop new theory and innovative methods to explore and explain the role of disadvantage in crime causation. Guided by Situational Action Theory, and using unique data about young people and their environments from the longitudinal Peterborough Adolescent and Young Adult Development Study (PADS+), we will investigate (e.g., using space-time budget and small area community survey methodologies) how adolescents' and young adults' social lives vary in relation to their different levels of social disadvantage as a consequence of processes of social and self-selection. We hypothesize that if social disadvantage has an impact on young people's crime and criminal careers (e.g., onset, duration and desistence) this may be primarily because disadvantage-induced selection processes are likely to place disadvantaged young people more often than others in developmental contexts that are conducive to the development of a higher crime propensity, and in action contexts in which acts of crime tend to be encouraged (or at least are not strongly discouraged). As far as we know, this aspect of the role of disadvantage in crime causation has never been properly theorised and empirically studied and will break new ground in the understanding of the disadvantage-crime relationship. We anticipate that a better understanding of the role of social disadvantage will not only be crucial for the advancement of our knowledge about crime and its causes but also potentially for how the problem of crime is addressed and can be more effectively dealt with politically and socially. We also anticipate that the findings of our research will help policy-makers and practitioners devise better policies and interventions to prevent young people who grow up in disadvantaged environments from developing into persistent and serious offenders.
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