Pathways to Crime and Antisocial Behavior: A Critical Analysis of Psychological Research and a Call for Broader Ecological Perspectives

Abstract

The United States has one of the highest rates of correctional supervision among all nations in the world, reflecting the disproportionate incarceration of racial minorities and economically disadvantaged groups. Scholars have emphasized the role of structural factors and governmental policies in long-term shifts in crime and incarceration. However, much of the psychological research on crime and antisocial behaviors has not deeply considered this broader context, focusing mostly on individual and proximal environmental risk factors. This article presents a novel synthesis of large cross-disciplinary literatures that have not been previously integrated. After a brief summary of dominant themes in psychological research on the topic, we review the strong evidence, primarily from fields outside of psychology, for structural forces that explain pathways into criminal justice involvement, independent of individual-level explanations. A broader ecological framework is outlined to help unconfound individual and structural influences, with the hope of motivating policy change that is evidence-based and equitable.