Explaining Criminal Careers Implications for Justice Policy | Explaining Criminal Careers: Implications for Justice Policy
Abstract
Criminal career research conducted over the past 40 years is reviewed with a focus on theories and mathematical models leading to quantitative predictions. Starting in the 1970s The evolution of criminal career theories is described in some detail with key career features like: onset, prevalence, frequency, duration and termination; identified. The various offender categorisations that have been proposed, like: chronics, innocents, desisters, persisters, frequents and occasionals; and the models using these concepts are also described together with their results. Criminal career research in the two decades spanning the millennium is also reviewed, including offending trajectory modelling. The importance of longitudinal studies is stressed while some of the objections to the paradigm are addressed. The main aims of the book and the methodological approach to the analysis and modelling are described.
Background
Unlike theories in the physical sciences, theories in criminology, as in the other behavioural and social sciences,...