A comparative, cross-cultural criminal career analysis (original) (raw)
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Criminal careers and life success: new findings from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development
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Much of the research on criminal careers has concentrated on the dimensions of prevalence, frequency, specialization, and desistance. One dimension that has not been the focus of research is career length. Knowledge on the distribution of—and correlates associated with—career length is important for matters related to theory and policy. Using data from a sample of parolees from the California Youth Authority, the authors studied the career-length issue and provide important descriptive and etiological information. The authors also present some comparisons across race to determine if race differences emerge in career length and its correlates. Theoretical and empirical directions for future research are also addressed.
Rethinking the "norm" of offender generality: Investigating specialization in the short-term
The life-course approach to criminal career research has devoted a good deal of attention to the generality or specialization of offending behavior. Typically, extant research demonstrates versatility on the part of offenders, yet such findings could be attributable, at least in part, to time and measurement aggregation bias. This work uses a temporally * The authors gratefully acknowledge both the guidance of Raymond Paternoster, under whose editorship this manuscript was initially submitted and the review process begun, and the helpful suggestions of the anonymous reviewers. Data for this study were accessed from the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). The original collector of the data, ICPSR, and the relevant funding agency bear no responsibility for use of this collection or for interpretations or inferences based on its use. Bibliographic Citation for Data Collection: Horney, Julie, and Ineke Haen Marshall. Crime Commission Rates Among
Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 2018
There have been few efforts to conceptually and empirically distinguish persistent and chronic offenders, despite the prominence of these concepts in the criminological literature. Research has not yet examined if different childhood risk factors are associated with offenders who have the longest criminal careers (persistent offenders), commit the most offences (chronic offenders), or both (persistent–chronic offenders). We address this gap using data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development. Poverty, poor school attainment, and family stress had a pervasive impact on all forms of offending in correlational analyses. Longer criminal career durations were associated with fewer childhood risk factors than was the case for chronic offenders. Chronic offenders were significantly more likely than persistent offenders to experience many environmental risks in childhood. When controlling for all other risk factors, hyperactivity and parental separation uniquely predicted persiste...
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.
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Because different methods for studying criminal behavior all suffer from important limitations, it is useful to apply different methodologies to the same population whenever possible. In this analysis, we examine the relationships between self-report and official record-based measures of offending activity using populations of adolescent serious offenders in Phoenix, Arizona, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Mixtures of Participation and Frequency During Criminal Careers Over the Life Span
2009
Recent advances and debates surrounding general/developmental and static/dynamic theories of crime can be traced to the 1986 National Academy of Science Report on criminal careers and the discussion it generated. A key point of contention lies in the interpretation of the age-crime curve. For Gottfredson and Hirschi, the decline in the agecrime curve in early adulthood reflects decreasing individual offending frequency (λ) after the peak. Blumstein et al. claim that the decline in the aggregate age-crime curve can also be attributable to the termination of criminal careers, and the average value of λ could stay constant (or increase with age) for those offenders who remain active after that peak. Using data from the Criminal Career and Life Course Study including information on criminal convictions over 60 years of almost 5,000 persons convicted in the Netherlands and applying a Two-Part Growth Model that explicitly distinguishes between participation and frequency the paper assesse...
Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 2004
This study explores the characteristics of the perpetration of crime over a 15-year follow-up period for a sample of adjudicated French Canadian males. Two patterns of perpetration of crime were identified between adolescence and adulthood. The organized pattern is mainly characterized by a predominance of utilitarian motives, a considerable level of planning, and an increased use of instruments. The disorganized pattern of perpetration of crime is motivated by hedonism and thrill seeking, displays little organization, and is characterized by a greater propensity to drug and alcohol use. Pathways were identified to determine how offenders combined these patterns between adolescence and midadulthood. All pathways showed signs of disorganization with age. These results suggest that patterns of perpetration of crime are more dependent on situational components and criminal opportunities, which are both more likely to vary across time, rather than on individual predispositions. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.
Criminal careers of young adult offenders after release
Central European Journal of Operations Research, 2013
This longitudinal study examined stability and change of delinquency among young offenders after their release. The sample consists of male Germans (N = 2405) who were incarcerated in five juvenile prisons in different federal states. Standardized interviews were repeatedly conducted with the prisoners during imprisonment and after release to gather information about personal and social risk as well as protective factors. Based on official criminal records, delinquency was registered up to eight years after the first incarceration. The time interval between release and recidivism, severity of offending and the kind of punishment was observed. Applying of Trajectory Analysis according to Nagin (2005) three distinct developmental trajectories can be identified differing in both level of and change in offending over time: Occasional offenders, high level offenders and age-limited offenders. The groups differ in personal and social factors. Results are discussed with regard to offender treatment and prison aftercare.