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The cycle of violence theory (CVT) and the pathways theory (PT) are similar in that both have a strong focus on victimizations and other adverse life events as risk factors for offending. Traditionally, and sometimes still, life course theory (LCT) research, although asking detailed accounts of childhood events, often fails to include abuse and other trauma victimizations.¹ Table 3.2 summarizes and compares the traditional tenets of each of these theories (CVT, LCT, and PT). Significantly, they are changing and improving in their applications over time and are more frequently being combined, which will be presented in Chapter 13.

¹ Many pathways and life course publications refer to these approaches as perspectives instead of theories. Given that substantial scholarship has confirmed these perspectives, I refer to them as theories.

Table 3.2

Note: This chart summarizes three theories that evolved around the same time, primarily as they started. Fortunately, there have been improvements; for example, LCT now usually includes girls/women and increasingly included childhood abuse, and CVT is more likely to include self-report offending behaviors. Chapter 14 addresses the way these theories are more commonly combined or paired in more recent research.

Data collected consistent with LCT is prospective, collecting data over time on the same individuals. CVT is also considered prospective, typically using official data on the same individuals over time, such as childhood victimizations reported to hospitals and the police and adolescent and adult arrest records, although increasingly, CVT studies also use self-report data (e.g., A. A. Fagan, 2005; Wright & Fagan, 2013). Conversely, PT research is retrospective, asking individuals about their past experiences at one point in time. The advantages of prospective data collection are improved accuracy of the temporal ordering of life events (e.g., “Did the child run away or start using drugs before or after being sexually abuse?”) and the inclusion of people who will not offend so that resiliency can be studied and better understood (e.g., “What was related to not offending?”). PT is far less expensive than CVT or LCT because the participants are surveyed or interviewed at only one point in time about their lives. But PT studies usually are conducted solely on incarcerated offenders, so they offer limited resiliency analysis other than looking at desistance over time (which is still important, but CVT and LCT can do this, as well). An advantage of PT is that incidents of abuse and neglect will likely be more accurate and frequently reported than with LCT or CVT. In LCT, children who are asked about these incidents may feel unsafe or uncomfortable reporting them to a researcher, and adults (e.g., parents, guardians, teachers) who are asked about children’s victimizations may not know about them or may even be the perpetrators of them. PT data on child maltreatment is likely more accurate than CVT data, which has historically relied on official reports (and most child abuse is not officially reported). Of course, whether prospective or retrospective, a survivor of trauma can also completely repress such events (even officially reported ones), so they may never be known (unless there is official documentation).