Contribution of Family Adversity and Verbal IQ to Criminal Behavior

• NCJ Number: 191100
• Journal: International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology Volume: 45 Issue: 5 Dated: October 2001 Pages: 574-592
• Author(s): Chris L. Gibson; Alex R. Piquero; Stephen G. Tibbetts
• Date Published: October 2001
• Length: 19 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Research (Theoretical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study examined the hypothesis that stated that two specific risk factors, verbal IQ and family adversity, interacted to increase the probability of particular types of criminal behavior.

Abstract

It was hypothesized that the verbal IQ and family adversity interaction would not be predictive of whether an individual was an offender by age 18 because the interaction would only be a risk factor for a certain type of offending. Also, the hypothesis that the verbal IQ and family adversity interaction would be important in weeding out specific types of offenders within the age-crime curve would be examined. The sample consisted of 987 African American inner-city youth born and raised in Philadelphia. Research had shown that adult persistent offending was rooted in early childhood behavioral problems. Moffitt’s Interaction Hypothesis suggested that a relatively small group of offenders exhibited criminal behavior early in life and was likely to be chronic in offending patterns. It claimed that the small group of individuals possessed neuropsychological problems in early childhood and disadvantaged environments and/or family adversity. Results indicated that the combined effect of verbal IQ and family adversity did not significantly increase the odds of becoming an offender. However, the combined effect of low verbal IQ scores at age seven and family adversity significantly increased the odds of early onset of offending. The results were consistent with Moffitt’s theory regarding the model predicting the prevalence of offending. And, as predicted by Moffitt, the odds of incurring an early onset were increased when there was a co-occurrence of both low verbal IQ scores and high family adversity. The findings suggested that there may be different risk factors across different types of offending measures. 3 tables, 81 references