Terrie Moffitt Argumentative Analysis

Selective incarceration of habitual criminal is a tool in criminal justice used to identify criminals who serves as a risk to their society. Stiff sentences are impose upon them with the aim of incapacitating them from committing future crime. The inmate population in the recent years place pressure on prisoners and jail resources. Terrie Moffitt argues that the selective incarceration of habitual criminals indicates a supportive way in understanding delinquency. She states that for delinquency to be well understood, one must view it as a progress along two developmental paths which is not even sufficient.

Her theory is one of the most leading theories in the psychology of delinquency and crime. One of the theory path is that when a child is seen with a crime attributes at a very early age like three or even younger, that child can never grows out of it because it will lead to adulthood and a greater offense. She termed this as ‘development of habitual criminal behavior,’ which is exhibited from childhood as a neurological problems such as learning problems, difficult temperaments, and hyperactivity or attention deficit disorder. Moffitt further argues that this same children develop problem solving and judgement deficiencies that later become seeming when adulthood is attained.

She further argued that it can be because of inadequate schools, violent neighborhood that causes antisocial behavioral pattern. She also came up with ‘individual adolescent limited offenders,’ this offenders started during their adolescent years and stopped round their early adulthood stage due to the social and peer