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OCR for page 1
Summary
THE CRIMINAL CAREER APPROACH
Much research on crime has focused on
aggregate crime rates, i.e., crimes per cap-
ita in the general population. In contrast,
the criminal career approach seeks to an-
alyze the activity the careers-of the in-
dividuals who commit criminal offenses.
In this approach, aggregate rates are par-
titioned into two primary components:
the percentage of the population that
commits crimes and the nature ant! extent
of activity of those people who are ac-
tively engaging in crime (i.e., active of-
fenders). This partitioning is important
because the two components can be in-
fluenced by very different factors ant! call
for quite different policy responses: the
first participation is associated with ef-
forts to prevent indivicluals from ever be-
coming involved in crime; the second]
frequency, seriousness, ant! career
length is central to the decisions of the
criminal justice system. Together, these
four key dimensions characterize crimi-
nal careers:
1
1. Participation the distinction be-
tween those who engage in crime and
those who do not;
2. Frequency the rate of criminal ac-
tivity of those who are active;
3. Seriousness of offenses committed;
4. Career length the length of time
an offender is active.
Frequency, seriousness, and length of
career may vary substantially across of-
fenders. At one extreme are offenders
whose careers consist of only one offense.
At the other extreme are "career crimi-
nals" also variously characterized as
dangerous, habitual, or chronic offend-
ers who commit serious offenses with
high frequency over exten(led periods of
time. Both of these extreme career types
are of policy interest. Offenders with
short careers who commit very few of-
fenses are of interest for identifying exter-
nal factors that foster early termination of
careers and that can be affecter! by public
policy. Such knowle(lge will be espe-
cially useful in the design of crime con
OCR for page 2
2
trot policies, including prevention
achieved through the imposition of sanc-
tions for deterrent or rehabilitative pur-
poses. Career criminals are of interest for
formulating policies that can identify
these offenders early in their careers and
selectively target criminal justice re-
sources at preventing their crimes, pri-
marily through incarceration.
Partitioning criminal activity enables
research to focus more directly on the
development and evolution of individu-
als' offending behaviors over time and
their relationship to aggregate crime
rates. For example, a drop in the aggre-
gate index crime rate may reflect a de-
cline in participation, a decrease in fre-
quency, a shift to less serious crimes, or a
shortening of career lengths. If a causal
factor strongly affected only one of these
career dimensions, variation in the others
could mask that relationship when crime
is measured in terms of the aggregate
rate. Since different factors are likely to
affect the different dimensions of criminal
careers, it is important to isolate those
dimensions to assess each factor's respec-
tive influence.
Measurement of the dimensions of
criminal careers is inherently difficult. It
would be easy, of course, if one could find
a large representative sample of the pop-
ulation, each of whom would cooperate
by maintaining and regularly submitting
a daily log of any criminal activity. Since
that option does not exist, criminology
has developed two primary sources: ret-
rospective self-reports from indivicluals
about whether they have committed
crimes and, if so, when, what kinds, and
how often; and official arrest histories,
which are viewed as a sample of crimes
committed. Each of these approaches has
its own flaws-nonresponse, distortion,
and recall error in self-reports and varia-
tions in police arrest decisions or offender
skill that lead to biases in the sampling
process that generates official records.
But the findings derived from one ap
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS
preach can ant] should be tested against
the findings clerived from the other to
develop more reliable measures of the
underlying crime process.
FINDINGS ON CRIMINAL CAREERS
Some of the factors most strongly asso-
ciated with aggregate crime and arrest
rates are the demographic factors of age,
race, and sex. By separately analyzing the
links of these factors to participation and
frequency, one can begin to see the im-
portance of the criminal career approach.
The data show that these demographic
variables are strongly associated with par-
ticipation and only weakly associated
with individual frequency. That is, teen-
agers, blacks, and mates are most heavily
represented in aggregate measures of of-
fending because larger percentages of
those populations than of other popula-
tions become involved in offending. But
among all offenders, frequency of offend-
ing is much less related to the demo-
graphic variables. Because criminal jus-
tice system clients have already passed
through the participation "filter," sanc-
tion decisions that invoke those demo-
graphic variables are likely to be seri-
ously in error from a crime control
perspective. Thus, separating the partici-
pation rate from the course of active of
fenders' criminal careers enables one to
isolate influences on the initiation of of-
fending from influences on the frequency
or duration of a criminal career. In prac-
tical terms, prospective indicators of a
high participation risk are useful in sug-
gesting prevention strategies to reduce
the fraction of offenders in the popula-
tion.
Participation in Offending
Measures of Participation
Participation can be measured either
cumulatively (the fraction of a given
group ever committing at least one crime
OCR for page 3
SUMMARY
before attaining some age), or currently
(the fraction committing at least one
crime during a particular observation pe-
riod). It is possible to tabulate participa-
tion rates baser! on either official records
of arrests or convictions or self-reports of
offending.
Scholars concemed with crime and
delinquency have tended to study urban
areas, where crime is most heavily con-
centrated, and mates, who dominate ag-
gregate arrest statistics. Therefore, knowI-
ecige is most complete concerning
participation by urban mates, and com-
parative participation data are most
readily available for the racial groups in
urban areas. Participation in criminal be-
havior, as measured by arrests, is higher
than many people expect: 25~5 percent
of urban males have been arrested by age
18 for a nontragic offense; 12-18 percent
for an FBI index offense (murder, rape,
robbery, aggravates! assault, burglary, lar-
ceny, and auto theft); and ~8 percent for
a crime involving personal injury. About
half of those ever arrested during their
lifetimes are first arrester! before they
reach 18.
The earliest criminal careers can begin
before age 10; the rate of initiation rises to
a maximum in the late teens and then
drops off rapidly. At the peak age in the
teenage years, the maximum probability
of a first arrest for an index offense is
about 6 percent for blacks and 2 percent
for whites. Based on a number of studies,
the black/white ratio of males ever ar-
rested by age 18 is about 1.8 to 1 for
nontraffic offenses. Other data suggest
that the ratio is about 3 to 1 for FBI index
offenses and at least 4 to 1 for offenses
involving injury. The greatest demo-
graphic differential is that attributable to
sex: even for all nontragic offenses, male
participation rates based on official rec-
ords are 3 to 5 times those for females;
the ratio is higher for more serious
crimes.
3
Risk Factors in Criminal
Participation
Research suggests that adverse family
influences and early antisocial behaviors
are major risk factors associated with par-
ticipation in delinquency and crime. The
family influences most strongly associ-
ated with subsequent participation in-
clude inadequate parenting, as mani-
fested by inconsistent or sporadically
violent discipline, poor parent-child com-
munication, and poor supervision; paren-
tal delinquency or criminality; parental
discord and family breakup; large family
size, especially in poor families; and
some indicators of Tow socioeconomic sta-
tus Primarily for serious crimes).
High rates of delinquency participation
have been found among children exhibit-
ing the following antisocial behaviors at
an early age: covert antisocial behavior
(e.g., lying, stealing); overt antisocial be-
havior (e.g., aggression, fighting); poor
school performance; abuse of hard drugs
or alcohol; and association with delin-
quent peers. Of course, all ofthese behav-
iors occur frequently in many children
who never begin criminal careers, but
their chronic occurrence is correlated
with a higher risk of participation in crim-
inal activity.
Although these risk factors have been
suspected "causes of crime" for some
time, recognition of their links to partici-
pation could provide some basis for cle-
signing strategies to prevent the initiation
of criminal careers. However, several
considerations hamper efforts to do so:
· Difficulty in prospectively identify-
ing offenders. Most youth who present
any one of Me precursors do not initiate
. . ~
serious criminal . careers.
· Uncertainty about effective interven-
tions. Attempts to remecliate precursor
behaviors associated with participation
may not influence participation itself;
OCR for page 4
4
most evaluations of preventive programs
carried out thus far have design problems
that preclude definitive conclusions
about effectiveness.
· Uncertainty about the optimal age for
intervention. While the behavior of
young children (e.g., ages 4~) is more
responsive to interventions, it is more
difficult to correctly identify high-risk
children at those young ages.
· Other concerns such as program cost,
unintended] undesirable consequences,
and legal and ethical limitations on per-
missible interventions with youths who
have not been charged with any offense.
While a few interventions have demon-
strated effectiveness in welI-designed
experiments, they have involves! small
samples. Larger, more heterogeneous
samples in multiple settings shouIc! be
used to further explore Head Start pre-
schoo! enrichment programs and pro-
grams to train parents and teachers in
communication with and supervision of
children and in behavioral methods for
modifying chiTctren's antisocial behav
iors.
Individual Frequencies for Active
Offenders
Overall Rates
Individual offending frequency (A) is
measured by the number of crimes com-
mitted per year by an active offender.
Despite differences in observation tech-
niques (self-reports or arrest recorcis), in
the samples used (inmates, arresters, or
general population samples), and in the
jurisdictions examined (with their differ-
ent population characteristics and crimi-
nal justice system practices), there is con-
siderable convergence in estimates of A
for any given offense type: averages of 2
to 4 violent crimes per year for active
violent offenders and 5 to 10 property
CRIMINaL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS
crimes per year for active property of-
fenders.
The average A of inmates is higher than
that of offenders not incarcerated, which
is to be expected since the greater activity
of high-rate offenders increases their ex-
posure to arrest and because selectivity in
criminal justice decisions increases the
risk of incarceration of those offenders if
arrested. Estimates derived from self-
reports by inmates in California and
Michigan indicate that, before being in-
carcerated, those who were active in rob-
bery committed an average of 15 to 20
robberies per year and those active in
burglary committed an average of 45 to 50
burglaries per year. Rates estimated for
Texas inmates more closely resemble
those of offenders in the community.
Most significantly, A varies consider-
ably across offenders so that the distribu-
tion of A is highly skewe(l: the median
offender commits only a handful of
crimes per year, while a small percentage
of offenders commit more than 100 crimes
per year. This finding is obviously espe-
cially important in cleveloping policies to
reduce crime by concentrating on high-
rate offenders, or "career criminals."
Demographic Differences in A
Sex, age, ant! race data are routinely
collected on offenders, primarily for oper-
ational identification purposes, and esti-
mates of A are often contrasted across
demographic subgroups defined in those
terms. In contrast to the large demo-
graphic differences observed in participa-
tion rates, average values of A do not vary
substantially with the demographic at-
tributes of sex, age, or race.
Most notably, black/white ratios for A
range from about 1-1.3 to 1 for most
crimes and are less than 2 to 1 even for
robbery and other violent offenses that
show very substantial race differences in
aggregate population arrest rates. In other
OCR for page 5
SUMMARY
words, the large race difference observed
in aggregate crime or arrest rates is clue
mostly to black/white differences in par
. ~ · . - .1 .1 ~
in A.
Preliminary data also suggest that male/
female frequency ratios are generally less
than 2 to 1, even for the traclitionally mate
offenses of assault and robbery. And, fi-
nally, A is relatively insensitive to age.
tlclpatlon rather than clluerences
~ a. . . .
Other Factors Related to A
Differences in A are associates! with a
number of nonclemographic factors, in-
cluding age of initiation of criminal ca-
reers, drug use, unemployment, and prior
criminal record. Although their theoreti-
cal significance is sometimes ambiguous,
these factors offer policy potential, espe-
cially as a basis for iclentif~in~ hi~h-rate
~. ~ ~
~ ~ is
onenaers. Fencers who begin criminal
careers at younger ages generally have
higher values of A than offenders who
begin at older ages. High frequencies are
found among active offenders who are
currently using drugs, especially multiple
drugs, and among those who used drugs
as juveniles. The values of A for drug
users are at least twice those for other
offenders and can be 6 times higher dur-
ing periods of heavy drug use. The length
of time spent unemployed is a significant
factor associated with A: offenders who
are unemployed] for substantial periods of
time commit crimes at higher rates. Last,
high frequencies in We past are a good
indicator of high frequencies in the future
for offenders who remain active.
T~ · ~ -
renas in Seriousness
Most active offenders engage in a con-
siclerable variety of crime types, with a
somewhat greater tendency for offenders
to repeat the same crime or to repeat
within the group of property crimes or the
group of violent crimes. For juveniles,
5
offense seriousness generally escalates
over successive arrests, but it is difficult to
determine how much of that escalation is
due to differences among offenders (with
more persistent offenders also commit-
ting more serious crimes) or to a tendency
of offenders generally to escalate the se-
riousness of their crimes as their careers
progress. For adult offenders who are
arrested more than once, the evidence
suggests no clear trends in seriousness.
Career Length
Since participation in criminal activity
is more widespread among teenage males
than among adult males and A is relatively
stable over age for those offenders who
remain active, many careers must be very
short, en(ling abler only brief ventures
into crime as teenagers. This conclusion
is consistent with the decline with age
observed in aggregate arrest measures.
Research on duration of careers in fact
suggests that adult careers average only
about ~ years for offenders committing
index offenses. However, this average
hides major differences across offenders.
Residual career length (the expected time
still remaining in careers) is 5 years for
18-year-oIc3 inclex offenders, but it is 10
years for index offenders who are still
active in their 30s, and it does not begin to
clecline for active offenders until they are
in their 40s.
This finding that residual career
length increases through the 20s to reach
a maximum in the 30s-contradicts the
wiclely hell! view that the Tow arrest rates
in the 30s reflect high rates of career
termination at those ages. These low ar-
rest rates result from the high termination
rates at the earlier ages, but those few
persistent offenders who continue to be
active into their 30s clisplay the lowest
termination rates and the longest resiclual
, v
careers.
OCR for page 6
6
USE OF CRIMINAL CAREER
INFORMATION IN CRIMINAL
JUSTICE DECISION MAKING
The findings from research on criminal
careers can play an important role in the
decisions of the criminal justice system.
Those decisions take place at five points:
arrest, pretrial release, prosecution, sen-
tencing, and parole. At each point, deci-
sion makers are motivated by different
objectives such as maintaining public
orcler, ensuring appearance at trial, attain-
ing convictions, imposing deserved pun-
ishment, and maintaining order in pris-
ons but each also shares in the objective
of crime control. To further this objective,
decision makers may attempt to modify ers.
criminal careers, either directly through
behavioral or other individual therapies,
or indirectly, by modifying substance
abuse, employment prospects, or other
characteristics associated with the fre-
quency or residual duration of serious
offending.
Career Modification
An earlier Panel on Research on Reha-
bilitative Techniques reporter! in 1980
that no particular technique hac! been
found to be broacITy effective in directly
modifying criminal careers. For juvenile
offenders, some community-based pro-
grams result in recidivism rates that are
no higher than those for juveniles who
were incarcerated. A few recently studied
programs with behavior modification ori-
entations are reported to have favorably
modified the careers of small samples of
clelinquents during short (e.g., 1-year) fol-
low-up periods; these warrant replica-
tions with longer follow-up periods and
larger samples. Among indirect ap-
proaches to career modification, intensive
drug abuse surveillance and treatment
appear to reduce the frequency of serious
offending by criminals ad(licte(1 to hard
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS
drugs. Evaluations of interventions to up-
grade employment skills or to assist the
reentry of ax-inmates into the community
have not documented success in modify-
ing offenders' careers in the United
States, although such programs have met
with some success in the United King-
dom.
Given the Beard of interventions that
have demonstrated general effectiveness
in modifying careers, decision strategies
focused on career criminals have recently
become especially prominent, which has
led to research on how criminal career
information can be used to achieve
greater crime control, especially through
incapacitation of the most serious offend
Incapacitation
Under 1970 incarceration policies, in-
capacitation was estimated to have re-
duced the number of FBI index crimes by
10 to 20 percent. For robberies and bur-
glaries, incapacitation is estimated to
have reduced their number by 25~5 per-
cent in 1973; in 1982, after the national
inmate population had almost doubled,
the incapacitative effect for these offenses
is estimated to have increased to about
35~5 percent. For general increases in
incarceration to reduce index crimes by
an additional 10 to 20 percent from 1982
levels, inmate populations again would
have to have more than doubled.
Since the increments to crime control
from incapacitation are modest, even
with very large general increases in in-
mate populations, and since considerable
pressure on prison and jail resources ex-
ists, interest has been stimulated in de-
veloping policies that selectively target
incapacitation on the most active offend-
ers. Such policies have the potential of
achieving the same, or even improved,
crime reduction, with much smaller in-
creases in inmate populations. Two forms
OCR for page 7
SUMMARY
of selective incapacitation policies
been considered: offencler-based
have
poli-
cies, which extend the time served for
those predicted] to be high-rate offenders
among all those convicted of the same
charge; and charge-based policies, which
impose mandatory minimum terms on all
offenders convicted of selected offense
types in which high-rate offenders tend to
engage.
Of the selective incapacitation policies
that have been proposed, the estimates!
crime reduction effects through incapaci-
tation are modest, ranging at most up to
10 percent. Comparer! with the 100 per-
cent increase in inmate populations re-
quirecl to achieve this reduction through
general increases in incarceration, how-
ever, selective incapacitation policies in-
volve only 10 to 20 percent increases in
total inmate populations. The achievable
incapacitative effect will be Tower, how-
ever, if the offenses of incarcerated of-
fenders are continued by others or re-
placec! by new recruits. The degree to
which replacement occurs can be ex-
pectecl to vary by crime type (e.g., pre-
sumably higher for drug sales than for
acts of personal violence), but there are
no estimates of rates of replacement.
Furthermore, although selective inca-
pacitation policies can offer an attractive making.
tradeoff between crime reduction and in-
mate population increases, they raise a
number of ethical ant! operational issues:
· the inevitable errors associated with
any classification rule that distinguishes
between high-risk ant! Tow-risk offenders;
· the proper balance in criminal justice
decisions between cleserved punishment
and public protection Concern for future
crimes);
· the degree to which the addec! crime
control from selective incapacitation pol-
icies warrants sentence disparity in of-
fender-based policies or mandatory sen-
tences in charge-based policies; and
7
· the possibility that some selection
rules might disproportionately penalize
offenders who are from minority groups.
PREDICTION-BASED
CLASSIFICATION RULES
There have been a number of recent
developments in systems for classifying
offenders on the basis of assessments of
their criminal careers. These systems in-
volve two components: a statistically cle-
rived prediction scale that relates of-
fencler characteristics to the course of the
criminal career and a rule for classifying
offenders as high risk or Tow risk on the
basis of their prediction scale scores. In
assessing such classification rules, the
pane! consiclered several factors:
· the extent to which existing decision
practices aIreacly focus on offenders
whose criminal careers tend to be the
most serious;
· ethical limitations on the proper in-
fluence of predictions in decision making
and on the choice of predictor variables;
· methodological issues in construct-
ing and validating a prediction scale and
classification rule; and
· the record-keeping implications of a
criminal career orientation to decision
Existing Decision Practices
Because criminal justice decision mak-
ers do not routinely articulate their deci-
sion processes, it is difficult to know the
extent to which predictions about offend-
ers are incorporated into their decisions.
However, using statistical techniques,
studies have tested whether decision out-
comes are consistent with variables asso-
ciated with the criminal career: the in-
stant offense; the adult criminal history,
measured by the record of previous ar-
rests or convictions; the juvenile record,
including police contacts and adjudica
OCR for page 8
8
lions; indicators of multiple illicit drug
use; and employment history and current
status.
The panel found that the
~. . . . . ~
instant of-
tense has the clom~nant ~ntiuence on de-
cisions at all stages of the criminal justice
process, from arrest through parole. The
second most influential variable is the
record of previous arrests or convictions.
Use of the juvenile record is largely lim-
ited to sentencing and parole because
laws in most jurisdictions separate juve-
nile records from adult records. Drug use
is associated at the sentencing stage with
higher probabilities for jail or prison sen-
tences. Employment history and status is
associated with decisions only at the
stage of pretrial release.
On the basis of criminal career re-
search, current decision practices could
be improved, in terms of crime control
through incapacitation, if more weight
were given to the juvenile record and to
serious drug use.
Ethical Limitations
Opinions differ on the extent to which
it is ethically proper for predictive consid-
erations to influence the choice of crimi-
nal justice sanctions. Strict adherents to a
just-deserts philosophy exclude predic-
tions altogether, arguing that the blame-
worthiness of the instant offense is the
only permissible basis for sanctions. A1-
temative views are that while blamewor-
thiness for the offense determines a pre-
sumptive range of acceptable sanctions,
the appropriate sanction in a particular
case may vary within that range and could
be based on prediction-based classifica-
tions.
The weight one considers acceptable
for prediction-based classification rules
depends on the gravity of the harm one is
trying to prevent by means of classifica-
tion and the accuracy ofthe classifications
in assessing risk. In assessing whether a
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS
potential predictor is ethically accept-
able, its relationship to the blameworthi-
ness ofthe offender and the empirical and
logical relationship of the predictor to the
behavior being predicted are commonly
invoked criteria.
In light of these considerations, vari-
ables such as prior adult convictions are
more widely accepted as predictors than
behaviors or characteristics such as em-
ployment status, over which the offender
is presumed to have less control. Charac-
teristics such as race, ethnicity, and reli-
gion are especially unacceptable as can-
didate predictors because they have no
relationship to blameworthiness, they
have no logical relationship to offending
patterns, and their use affronts basic so-
cial values.
Methodological Issues
Since offenders' behavior cannot be
predicted perfectly, two types of classifi-
cation error occur: false-positive classifi-
cation of offenders as high risk when they
are truly low risk, and false-negative clas-
sification of offenders as low risk when
they are truly high risk. For any predic-
tion scale, the number of false-positive
errors can be reduced by raising the cut
point to classify fewer offenders as high
risk at the cost of more false-negative
errors. Any final choice of a prediction-
based classification rule should estimate
and weigh both types of errors, in devel-
oping the final classification rule.
Because the criminal justice process
consists of a series of decisions that result
in the release of some offenders while
others are confined, classification rules
are frequently distorted by selection bias
when a rule developed for use at one
stage- parole, for example-is applied at
another, such as sentencing or assign-
ment to a career criminal unit for prose-
cution. Also, because the mix of offender
characteristics at any given stage is likely
OCR for page 9
SUMMARY
to stiffer across jurisdictions, classification
rules constructed and validated in one
jurisdiction should be revaTidatec] before
use in another jurisdiction, even if they
are to be applied at the same stage of the
criminal justice system. Finally, even af-
ter a rule is implemented, its accuracy
may change over time because of changes
in offenders' underlying behavior pat-
terns, changes in the composition of the
offender population, or changes in crimi-
nal justice selection processes. Therefore,
periodic revaTidations should be per-
formect to be certain that the classification
rule is still effective.
Specific Classification Rules
Several prediction-based rules for cIas-
sifying offenders have attracted sufficient
attention to warrant assessment by the
panel. Two have been applied in parole
decision making and invoke similar vari-
ables: the Salient Factor Score of the
United States Parole Commission and the
Iowa Risk Assessment Instrument. Using
a broad criterion variable with a large
base rate (rearrest during follow-up peri-
ods of 3 years or more), the rate of false
positives Offenders cIassifiec3 as high
risks who were not arrested cluring the
follow-up period) is less than 30 percent
in construction samples ant! less than 40
percent in validation samples. The accu-
racy of these scales has generally been
maintainer] in applications to new sam-
ples of offenders ant! after various per-
sonal attributes of questionable appropri-
ateness have been eliminated from them.
A third! scale has been proposed by
INSLAW for use in selecting cases for
high-priority federal prosecution. This
scale is noteworthy for having focused on
the continuous measure of time until re-
cidivism rather than merely the dichoto-
mous variable of the occurrence of recicl-
ivism. The accuracy of this scale in its
construction sample is comparable with
9
the parole scales, but it has not yet been
tested in a validation sample. A fourth
scale, developed from ciata collected in
the Ranc! inmate survey, is unique in its
use of Gentling frequency (A) as the cri-
terion variable. However, when the scale
was used to classify the offenders as high
A, the false-positive rate was 60 percent
for a sample of California inmates and 55
percent for the entire three-state sample.
Future scale development shouts] be
aimed at improving the classification of
offenders in terms of their frequency of
offending and their residual career
length. While these career dimensions
are not directly observable, their values
can be inferred using statistical tech-
niques that analyze time to recidivism.
Record-Keeping Implications
For criminal career knowledge to be
helpful in decisions (whether formally or
informally), the relevant information has
to be accurate and available to decision
makers on a timely basis. Much of this
information is stored in the record sys-
tems of adult ant! juvenile justice a~en-
cies as well as social welfare agencies.
While there is no universal agreement
about what information should be permit-
ted to influence criminal justice decisions
(e.g., some people believe that only aclult
convictions shouIc] be user! and neither
arrests nor juvenile court actions), it is
clear that full adult ant! juvenile arrest
records do provide valuable information
about criminal careers.
The improvement of arrest and dispo-
sition data shouIc! be a high-priority ob-
iective of criminal justice systems. Arrest
records should be macle more complete
and accurate, and pertinent attributes of
an offense should also be reported on the
arrest history. Arrest records to be used in
decisions shouts] be augmenter! with cor-
responding dispositions. When an arrest
is fount! to have been clearly unwar
in,
.
~ '
OCR for page 10
10
ranted, as in a case of mistaken identity,
there should be a prominent notation and
an opportunity for expungement.
Adult justice system agencies should
gain access to the juvenile record at the
time of a person's first serious criminal
involvement as an adult. In defining cri-
teria for access, different jurisdictions
might choose different thresholds of
crime seriousness and different stages of
criminal justice processing (e.g., arrest,
indictment, or conviction). Requiring a
high level of seriousness would reflect a
clesire to avoid opening a juvenile record
in connection with only a minor offense.
Precluding access until after conviction
would reflect a belief in the principle that
a juvenile record should not influence
decisions in the adult system that are
made before guilt is established with le-
gal certainty. Altematively, permitting
prosecutors and judges to see a juvenile
record when making charging, pretrial
release, and plea bargaining decisions
would allow them to become more fully
informer! of the public safety risks associ-
atec] with their decisions. Different juris-
dictions will weigh these concerns dif-
ferently and so may choose different
thresholds and stages. One choice that
seems reasonable would be the first adult
arrest for a felony. A juvenile record
would be appended to an aclult record
only if the adult arrest leads to a convic-
tion. The juvenile record, with appropri-
ate safeguards against dissemination,
wouIcl be retained in the juvenile repos-
itory at least as Tong as it retains value for
decision making in the adult criminal
justice system.
AN AGENDA FOR FUTURE
RESEARCH
The area of criminal career research is
sufficiently promising from both knowI-
edge and policy perspectives to warrant a
significant effort with a long-term com
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS
mitment for support. Key features of the
effort should be improved measurement
of the dimensions of criminal careers;
measurement of their distributions,
which are still known only imprecisely;
measurement of the variation of the di-
mensions over the course of a criminal
career; and better identification of the
factors that influence criminal careers.
The most important criminal career
dimension is individual frequency, par-
ticularly of serious offenses. The two ap-
proaches now used to measure frequen-
cy self-reports and official arrest rec-
ords-provide reasonable measures, but
estimates would be improved apprecia-
bly if the two methods were applied to
the same samples. Particular attention
should be directed at learning how the
probability of arrest following a crime
varies across subpopulations or crime
types. More knowledge about the error
structures of the two approaches, and
their links to the underlying crime proc-
ess, would increase the usefulness of the
large number of official-record data sets
that are available as primary record
sources for estimating criminal career di-
mensions. Research should focus espe-
cially on the path of A over time as of-
fenders age, variation in A with age for
active offenders, the factors associated
with intermittent spurts of high-rate and
low-rate offending, and differences in A
by crime type.
While some correlates of career dimen-
sions are reasonably well established
(e.g., employment), it is still not clear
whether the correlations reflect causal re-
lationships that couIcl be manipulated to
facilitate earlier termination. For exam-
ple, it would be clesirable to follow up
earlier experiments that provided postre-
lease subsidy payments to parolees to
recluce their economic needs with a pro-
gram designed to avoid the work disin-
centive effects observed in that experi-
ment (perhaps by requiring the recipients
OCR for page 11
SUMMARY
to perform community service). Of partic-
ular policy significance is exploration of
the factors most influential in terminating
a criminal career. For example, little is
known about the effect of time in prison
on residual career length, especially
about whether such time simply post-
pones career termination. Questions of
effects of particular treatments on career
dimensions are generally best aciciressed
through an experimental approach.
Research activities that relate closely to
incapacitation policy include the devel-
opment of improved methods for cIassify-
ing individuals in terms of their criminal
career dimensions. Strong candidate cIas-
sification variables include those that
characterize prior juvenile and adult
criminal activity the age of initiation, the
frequency and total number of arrests and
convictions, and the mix of crime types. It
is important to assess the clegree to which
an individuals record of juvenile and
adult arrests provides significantly more
predictive information than does the adult
conviction record alone. Since active drug
use is strongly associated with high
offending frequencies, both the uses of
this knowledge in decision making and
the role of drug treatment in crime control
should be further explored.
It is also important to refine and test
theoretical explanations of initiation of
clelinquency or criminal activity and of
continuation into serious adult careers.
Better information is needed on particu-
lar behaviors, life events, and early career
patterns that can be linked to subsequent
11
career paths. One aspect of criminal ca-
reers, especially among juveniles, is the
role of others in influencing initiation and
continuation of offending. It would be
particularly importer to identify the cle-
gree to which some iclentifiable individual
offenders serve as recruiters to offending
and to what extent behavior can be ex-
plained as compliant responsiveness to
recruitment efforts. Also with regard to
initiation, it is important to explore more
carefully the events that may influence
the initiation of careers but that have not
been sufficiently studied in a longitudinal
context to establish causation. Such events
include abuse at the hands of family mem-
bers, parental alcohol or drug abuse, and
divorce or other traumatic life events.
Many of these issues are best ad-
dressed through a longituclinal research
clesign, especially in view of the inher-
ently longitudinal and dynamic character
of criminal careers. A major new Tongitu-
dinal stucly that follows multiple cohorts
of inclividuals, linking their criminal ca-
reers to personal characteristics and to
other life events, would be very valuable.
Such a major project should be under-
taken in a way that reflects multiple dis-
ciplinary and theoretical perspectives rel-
evant to unclerstanding criminal careers.
The project should also try to incorporate
opportunities for experimental interven-
tions that can be tested on the population
being studied longitudinally. Such a pro-
gram shouIcl be a major national priority
as the next phase of research on criminal
careers.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
criminal justice
