Measuring long term individual trajectories of offending using multiple methods (original) (raw)
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Criminal Justice and Behavior
Early-onset offending is generally recognized as a risk factor for persistent criminal behavior. However, variation in long-term delinquent development among early-onset offenders remains rather underexplored and poorly understood. We, therefore, used multitrajectory modeling to identify distinct subgroups of early-onset offenders ( n = 708) based on the frequency of offending across several types of offenses up to age 25. We used multinomial regression analysis to characterize subgroups on gender, ethnicity, and childhood neighborhood characteristics. Six offender subgroups could be distinguished in our data: nonrecidivists (51%), sporadic recidivists (25%), and low-rate (8%), moderate-rate (10%), high-rate adult-peaked (3%), and high-rate adolescence-peaked recidivists (3%). Males, minorities, and children from disadvantaged neighborhoods were more likely to follow re-offending trajectories characterized by increased levels of property crime, vandalism, and violent and sexual offe...
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),
Predicting Trajectories of Offending over the Life Course: Findings from a Dutch Conviction Cohort
Journal of Research in …, 2009
Distinguishing trajectories of criminal offending over the life course, especially the prediction of high-rate offenders, has received considerable attention over the past two decades. Motivated by a recent study by , this study uses longitudinal data on conviction histories from the Dutch Criminal Career and Life-Course Study (CCLS) to examine whether adolescent risk factors predict offending trajectories across the life span. The CCLS is particularly well suited to study developmental offending trajectories as it contains detailed information on individual criminal offending careers for a representative sample of all individuals convicted in the Netherlands in 1977 (n = 4,615) beginning at 12 years of age and continuing into late adulthood. To assess predictive Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 46(4) 468-494
CRIMINAL TRAJECTORIES FROM ADOLESCENCE TO ADULTHOOD IN AN ONTARIO SAMPLE OF OFFENDERS
2000
The two goals of this study were to describe the criminal trajectories of the Toronto sample on the dimensions of rate, type, versatility, and severity and to estimate distinct (latent) trajectory groups using current techniques of group-based trajectory analysis. The sample comprised 378 Canadian male offenders whose criminal trajectories was tracked for an average of 12.1 years (SD = 3.0), from late childhood/early adolescence into adulthood. Their mean age at the time of the most recent follow-up (March 17, 2001) was 27.6 years. The results indicated that the sample incurred a total of 4,964 unique court contacts (M = 13.1, SD = 9.6). The average criminal career lasted for 8.4 years (SD= 4.5), from ages 15.5 years to 23.9 years. In terms of the criminal career dimensions, the rate of offending resembled the classic age-crime curve, peaking at age 17. The diversity level increased from ages 12 to 16 years, reached a plateau until age 20, and declined thereafter. The severity level peaked at about age 24. These findings suggests that the transition from adolescence to adulthood is characterized by a lower rate of offending but an increased involvement in a range of offences and in more serious offences. Four trajectory groups following distinct developmental courses were identified using a semi-parametric groupbased model: low rate (LR), moderate rate (MR), high rate, rapid descenders (HRRD), and high rate chronic (HRC). This result addresses the issue of heterogeneity in offending rates within the sample. The implications of these findings for further research and criminal justice policy are presented.
Very few studies have explored residual career length (RCL) and residual number of offenses (RNO), that is, the remaining time and number of offenses in criminal careers. This study uses conviction data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development to investigate RCL and RNO, for a sample of British males and their fathers. The sons were followed up to age 40 and the fathers up to age 70. Distributions of RCL and RNO according to six different criteria are presented (age on offense, conviction number, time since the last conviction, age of onset, offense type, and number of co-offenders). There was a general decline in RCL and RNO with age. Although RCL declined steadily with each successive conviction for both sons and fathers, RNO did not decline with conviction number for fathers. Over and above age on conviction, age of onset predicted RCL and RNO for sons, but less so for fathers. The type of offense and the number of co-offenders did not predict RCL or RNO. Risk scores showed that the predictive power of these variables for RCL and RNO was statistically significant but not very high. This finding highlights the difficulties associated with predictions of criminal career outcomes based on information available in official records, which is the main source of information available to decisionmakers in the criminal justice system.
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.
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.