NCJ Number
195196
Journal
International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology Volume: 46 Issue: 2 Dated: April 2002 Pages: 231-248
Date Published
2002
Length
18 pages
Annotation
The article explores the incidence of life-course-persistent antisocial behavior among children whose mother’s smoked cigarettes while pregnant.
Abstract
Maternal cigarette smoking during pregnancy has been the subject of research concerning developmental damage or disruption to the fetus. Recently, criminology research has focused on organic causes of criminal behavior, including pre-natal developmental disruption. The authors sought to expand this research to include the maternal cigarette smoking's potential disruptive effects on neurological development related to life-course-persistent antisocial behavior. The nature of life-course-persistent antisocial behavior is presented and Moffit’s (1993) developmental taxonomy of antisocial behavior is discussed as well as prior research regarding the relationship between maternal smoking and antisocial behavior among children. The current study focuses on antisocial behavior in adolescence and adulthood. Life-course-persistent antisocial behavior can be measured using Moffitt’s seven parameters. Those parameters are: age of onset of behavior, stability across developmental stages, stability across settings, offending frequency rate, the variety of the heterotypic activities across the antisocial spectrum, the severity of the offenses committed, and willingness to offend alone. These parameters were reviewed against data collected from 987 African American participants in the National Collaborative Perinatal Project. A relationship between maternal cigarette smoking and life-course-persistent antisocial behavior was found. 4 tables, 7 notes, 45 references