Analysis of Murderers Alex and Derek King

Criminology
Offenders: Alex and Derek King (12 and 13 when they killed their father)

Theory: Sampson and Laub's Age-Graded Theory of Informal Social Control

One basic premise of the Age-Graded criminology and informal social control theory was that, whilst experiences of childhood and personality traits are vital to comprehending behavioral stability, teenage and adulthood experiences can readdress criminal paths either more negatively or positively. Laub and Sampson discovered, particularly, that marital relationships and employment stability were a key factor in adult criminal change. With increased strength of familial and workplace bonds, deviancy and criminality in the non-delinquent control group as well as in criminals decreased. Further, Laub and Sampson looked keenly into qualitative narratives' ability to facilitate a more individual-centered life course examination. According to them, narratives of life history, together with quantitative techniques may be utilized for creating a more complete and richer image of why certain adult males continue to perpetrate crime while others quit. Narratives aid in unpacking mechanisms which link important life events over the course of life, particularly situational context and personal choice. Life history helps give voice to offsetting the broad array of statistical information data and the overall social sciences (Doherty, 2005).

Whilst initially counterintuitive, Laub and Sampson concluded that the information verified that justification of criminal existence and continual offending are virtually the same thing. With regard to desistance, it was discovered from criminal life histories and narratives that criminals desist due to individual actions combined with structural and situational influences associated with major institutions which facilitate desistance maintenance. Desistance isn't an event but a process which should be constantly renewed. The above underlying premise highlights the necessity of scrutinizing individual motivations and their social contexts. Desistance processes function all together at various levels and over diverse contextual settings. Desistance does not merely occur due to individual predisposition and aging (Sampson & Laub, 2004).

The theoreticians' examination also depicted a difference between individual paths and the cumulative age-crime curve, thereby corroborating a key crime career theory assumption. A salient feature of their findings is heterogeneous adult criminal behavior. The theorists revealed that criminal activity decreases as the offender ages, even in case of active offenders. Moreover, desistance paths are not prospectively identifiable on the basis of individual differences and typological accounts engrained in childhood. Although childhood projections are fairly correct when it comes to forecasting crime levels between offenders until their twenties, discrete categories, probably valid throughout the course of life, cannot be generated (Sampson & Laub, 2004). Theorists and Year of Theory Formulation
Laub and Sampson put forward the age-graded informal social control theory in the year 1993, in their book "Crime in the Making: Pathways and Turning Points through Life." The authors essentially claim that powerful social bonds springing from various life events forecast offenders' desistance from crime in their adult years. The last ten years have witnessed a growth of studies corroborating the above-mentioned broad discovery (Doherty, 2005). Premise of the Theory
The theoreticians came up with their Age-Graded model by employing some of criminology's most fascinating information ever. During the 1940s, Eleanor and Sheldon Gluck carried out a longitudinal research of Boston's disturbed teenaged boys, who had already broken the law and were attending reform school. The researchers gathered comprehensive information on the boys, looking carefully at them through their teenage years. This research was ignored until it was discovered by Laub and Sampson in a Harvard Library box. The two reconstructed the Glucks' data, following-up with their study subjects, who had now reached their late 50s. Some subjects (i.e., troubled Boston boys) remained law breakers even into adulthood, whereas others led highly ordinary lives and did not have any legal issues (Wright, 2008).

Laub and Sampson's answer made use of life-course developmental principles. In specific, they discovered that, problematic children who were set right in adulthood underwent a turning point -- some life circumstance or event like marriage, a stable, respectable job, or a military post, which transformed them from delinquents to responsible, law-abiding citizens. Military service brought discipline and structure into the boys' lives. Matrimony and employment brought stability as well as a need to follow the straight course if they wished to sustain their marriage and employment. The significance of the age-graded model is its integration of psychological inclinations and effect of family, jobs and other social factors on crime. This socio-psychological criminology approach encompasses a few of the greatest characteristics of strictly sociological and psychological perspectives, as it allows for individual differences in the tendency to perpetrate crime, whilst also allowing society to domineer or counter these tendencies. It offers hope that problematic children might someday experience a life-changing event in the form of meeting the right person or finding the perfect job (Wright, 2008). Details of the Offenders and their Crime
Derek and Alex King fled from home to live with a certain Rick Chavis for an entire week, in November 2001. Upon returning home, they remained miserable and ultimately, on 25th November, 2001, Derek used a baseball bat made of aluminum to murder his father, before setting the house afire. On getting caught, the brothers confessed, but subsequently recanted, claiming that Chavis was the killer. Apparently, Alex, who considered himself homosexual, was involved in an intimate relationship with Chavis. The latter was apprehended on charges of sexual exploitation of a minor child and hindering justice (he hid the brothers from the law for many days). Immediately after the brothers' recanting, David Rimmer, the prosecutor accused him of murder. Rimmer's allegation created a stir, as he had accused the brothers (now adults) of the same crime and had put forward two mutually exclusive accounts of the murder in two different court trials (Power, 2003).

The trial against Chavis concluded before that against the boys. Complications arose as the jury in the first trial acquitted Chavis while the second jury convicted Derek and Alex for letting in the murderer (i.e. Chavis), sentencing them to twenty-two years in prison. Everybody was displeased with the outcome. The judge discarded the brothers' convictions and subsequently ordered both sides to engage in mediation and try to arrive at a mutually agreeable compromise. Eventually, the brothers confessed to third degree murder. Alex and Derek were sentenced to seven and eight years, respectively, in prison, as well as offered counseling services (Power, 2003) The theory's applicability and how it explains the criminals' actions
The Kings' path was smoothed out by individuals who came forward to aid them. However, it is still not easy for them to make a conventional life for themselves: Derek's job-hunt thus far has been unsuccessful, owing to his grisly crime. Alex admits they erred, and anyone who still believes them to be killers is morally and legally entitled to do so. But some kindly people do put their faith in such criminals and consequently, Alex, who was released from prison in the year 2008, was taken in by journalism professor, Kathryn Medico. The lady had faith in him and supported him, providing him a secure family atmosphere that he lacked in the days when the crime took place (Celizic, 2009).

Age-graded theorists, John Laub and Robert Sampson (2003) claim that the life-course approach provides the most consistent and convincing structure to understand the processes motivating desistance and persistence in criminality across life (p. 296). In their 1993 work, the theorists differentiated individuals' life course depending on age, maintaining that salient informal and formal social control institutions capable of diminishing unlawful behavior differed across life. They suggested that the former means of social control expressed themselves differently with age. During childhood and teenage, these were mostly reliant on parental supervision, warmth, discipline, emotional bonds and other parenting elements, as well as on peer and school attachment. Adult male informal social controls relied on marriage, jobs and military service. The theoreticians differentiated individuals' life-course phases based on age, stressing the significance of formal and informal social controls that differed across life. They termed this approach the "age-graded" approach, as people had connections with each other, and broader institutions like society (Tasgin, 2012).

On being asked how the two brothers avoided prison's negative influences and were determined to be industrious citizens, Derek King claimed that prison is actually what a person makes of it; if an offender decides to benefit and learn from it, think over what he did, and attempt to tackle the issues which landed him in prison, he will be able to move on, and positively establish goals and ambitions. Therefore, after being released, he will see a positive life ahead. Alex claimed the two brothers benefited from the counseling they received when in prison (Dailymail, 2013).

Bibliography

Celizic, M. (2009, August 09). Brothers who killed father: 'There is still hope'. Retrieved from Today News: http://www.today.com/id/32731265/ns/today-today_news/t/brothers-who-killed-father-there-still-hope/#.V7SBhFt97IV

DailyMail. (2013, October 09). Brothers who murdered their father in 2001 when they were just 12 and 13 talk about their attempts to move on with their lives. Retrieved from Mail Online UK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2451335/Brothers-murdered-father-2001-just-12-13-talk-attempts-lives.html

Doherty, E. E. (2005). Assessing an Age-Graded Theory of Informal Social Control. Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice.

Laub, J.H., & Sampson, R.J. (1993). Turning points in the life course: Why change matters to the study of crime. Criminology, 31(3), 301-325.

Laub, J.H., & Sampson, R.J. (2003). Shared beginnings, divergent lives: Delinquent boys to age 70. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Power, J. (2003). Speculation on the King Brothers Case. Retrieved from NAMBLA: http://www.nambla.org/kings.html

Sampson, R., & Laub, J. (2004). A General Age Graded Theory of Crime. Testing Integrated Developmental/Life Course Theories of Offending.

Tasgin, S. (2012). ASSESSING AN AGE-GRADED THEORY OF INFORMAL SOCIAL CONTROL. Criminal Justice, 17.

Wright, B. (2008, December 01). Sampson & Laub's Age-Graded Life-Course Theory of Crime. Retrieved from Everday Sociology: http://www.everydaysociologyblog.com/2008/12/sampson-laubs-a.html