Predicting Trajectories of Offending over the Life Course: Findings from a Dutch Conviction Cohort (original) (raw)
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LIFE SPAN OFFENDING TRAJECTORIES OF A DUTCH CONVICTION COHORT*
Criminology, 2005
PAUL NIEUWBEERTA NSCR (Nederlands Studiecentrum Criminaliteit en Rechtshandhaving -Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement) KEYWORDS: age-crime relationship, life-course transitions, developmental trajectory The aim of this paper is to describe the development of criminal behavior from early adolescence to late adulthood based on conviction data for a sample of Dutch offenders. Measuring over an age span of 12 to 72, we ask whether there is evidence for (1) criminal trajectories that are distinct in terms of time path, (2) a small group of persistent offenders, (3) criminal trajectories that are distinct in the mix of crimes committed, or, more specifically, persistent offenders disproportionately engaging in violent offences, and (4) different offender groups having different social profiles in life domains other than crime. The analysis is *
THE EFFECTS OF LIFE CIRCUMSTANCES ON LONGITUDINAL TRAJECTORIES OF OFFENDING*
Criminology, 2005
This study, which is based on individual criminal careers over a 60year period, focuses on the development of criminal behavior. It first examines the impact that life circumstances such as work and marriage have on offending, then tests whether the effects of these circumstances are different for different groups of offenders, and finally examines the extent to which the age-crime relationship at the aggregate level can be explained by age-graded differences in life circumstances. Official data were retrieved for a 4-percent (N=4,615) sample of all individuals whose criminal case was tried in the Netherlands in 1977. Self-report data were derived from a nationally representative survey administered in the Netherlands in 1996 to 2,244 individuals aged 15 years or older. In analyzing this data, we use semi-parametric group-based models. Results indicate that life circumstances substantially influence the chances of criminal behavior, and that the effects of these circumstances on offending differ across offender groups. Age-graded changes in life circumstances, however, explain the aggregate age-crime relationship only to a modest extent. * We thank Daniel Nagin, John Laub, Rolf Loeber, Gerben Bruinsma, Catrien Bijleveld and Ray Paternoster and anonymous referees for numerous helpful suggestions. Please contact the authors at NSCR (Nederlands Studiecentrum Criminaliteit en Rechtshandhaving),
Childhood and Adolescent Predictors of Late Onset Criminal Careers
Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 2008
This study explores the emergence of a criminal career in adulthood. The main hypothesis tested is that late criminal onset (at age 21 or later) is influenced by early factors that delay antisocial manifestations. The Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD) was used to examine early determinants of criminal behavior. 400 Inner London males were followed from ages 8-10 to 48-50, and were classified as follows: 35 late onsetters who were first convicted at age 21 or later, and did not have high self-reported delinquency at ages 10-14 and 15-18; 129 early onsetters first convicted between ages 10 and 20; and 236 unconvicted males. Odds ratios and logistic regression analyses revealed that the best predictors of late onset offenders compared with early onset offenders included nervousness, having few friends at ages 8-10, and not having sexual intercourse by age 18. The best predictors of late onset offenders compared with nonoffenders included teacher-rated anxiousness at ages 12-14 and high neuroticism at age 16. It is concluded that being nervous and withdrawn protected boys against offending in adolescence but that these protective effects tended to wear off after age 21. These findings show that adult offending can be predicted from childhood, and suggest that early intervention might prevent a variety of maladjustment problems and difficulties in adult life.
Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 2009
Heterogeneity of re-offending patterns was studied in a group of 287 male early onset offenders who were first arrested before age 12. By combining data on the frequency and severity of offending as registered by the police over a 5-year follow-up period, three delinquent trajectories were identified; low, escalating, and high level re-offenders. Predicting group membership by individual and environmental characteristics known to the police at the time of the first arrest proved difficult. Compared to low level re-offenders, escalators were older and more often came from disadvantaged neighborhoods. High level re-offenders were also older at onset, more often had a non-Western ethnic background, and initially committed more vandalism. Furthermore, at the first police encounter, the police reacted more severely towards those who later became high level re-offenders. Finally, high and escalating re-offenders more often had other adverse outcomes, such as criminal victimization and Child Welfare Agency involvement.
Criminal Justice and Behavior
There has been no prior research comparing risk factors for categories of convicted individuals (C-types: life-course-persistent; adolescence-limited; late-onset) compared with the corresponding categories of individuals who self-reported offending (SR-types). This article examines the extent to which these convicted and self-reported categories of individuals overlap, and explores childhood risk factors that predict categories of C-types and SR-types. Criminal career information about individuals involved in the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD) is used; 25 childhood factors were analyzed. C-types and SR-types were more problematic than both official and SR nonoffenders. Life-course persisters, adolescence-limited offenders, and nonoffenders overlapped in official records and self-reports, but late-onset offenders did not. C-types were significantly similar to SR-types in childhood risk factors; only a few differences were found. The differences between C-types and S...
Criminal careers and life success: new findings from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development
The Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development is a prospective longitudinal survey of the development of offending and antisocial behaviour in 411 males first studied at age 8 in 1961at that time they were all living in a working-class deprived inner-city area of South London. This Findings describes their criminal careers up to age 50, looking at both officially recorded convictions and self-reported offending. It also examines life success up to age 48 based on nine criteria which were also measured on a comparable basis at age 32. The main aims were to investigate the development of offending and antisocial behaviour from age 10 to age 50 and the adult life adjustment of 'persisters', 'desisters' and 'late-onset' offenders at age 48.