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OCR for page 12
1
Introduction:
Studying Criminal Careers
THE CRIMINAL CAREERS CONCEPT
Although widely stucliecI, crime is one
of the most elusive subjects of social sci-
ence research as well as a major public
policy issue. It has been addressed by
many scholars from a wide variety of
disciplines; there has been extensive the-
orizing about its etiology; the public has
consistently ranker! crime as a serious
problem; and there is intense public de-
bate, even about facts, when considering
alternative policies for dealing with
crime. Yet, despite the importance of the
issues and the amount of research, little
definitive knowledge has been devel-
oped that could be applied to prevent
crime or to develop efficient policies for
reacting to crime. Over the past clecade,
however, some significant progress has
been made, ant! much of that has focused
on the "criminal career" paradigm.
A criminal career is the characterization
of the longitudinal sequence of crimes
committed by an individual offender. A
previous National Research Council
panel called for "research . . . directed at
characterizing the patterns of incliviclual
criminal careers" (Blumstein, Cohen, ant!
Nagin, 1978:781. This call was motivated
in large part by the realization that crime
is committed by inclivicluals, even when
they organize into groups, and that incli-
viduals are the focus of criminal justice
decisions. Thus, a paradigm focusing
attention on indivicluals might be most
appropriate both for probing the causes of
criminal behavior and for developing
crime control policies intencled to inter-
rupt or modify criminal careers.
Much research on crime has been fo-
cused on aggregate crime rates, that is,
crimes per capita in the general popula-
tion. The criminal career approach parti-
tions the aggregate rate into two primary
components: participation, the (listinc-
tion between those who commit crime
and those who do not; and frequency, the
rate of activity of active offenclers. This
partition is important not only because
the two components may be subject to
very different influences, but also be-
cause different authorities have different
levels of responsibility for control of the
two components. In particular, education,
social service, and mental health profes
12
OCR for page 13
INTRODUCTION: STUDYING CRIMINAL CAREERS
signals all provide services that may re-
duce participation in crime, while con-
trolling the rate of criminal activity is
more central to the decisions of the crim-
inal justice system. A decision on impris-
onment, for example, often involves some
concern for incapacitating a convicted of-
fender, and so it is a matter of prime
interest to estimate how many crimes in
the community might be avoided by the
removal of that offender.
In addition to the primary components
of participation and frequency, two other
dimensions that affect aggregate crime
rates can be incorporated in the criminal
career approach: duration, the length of
an individual career (the time from first to
last offense), and seriousness, which in-
cludes both the offenses committed and
patterns of switching among offenses.
Separate consideration of participation,
frequency, duration, and seriousness pro-
vides a finer resolution in the search for
the factors associates! with crime than c30
other common approaches. Traclitional
research on criminal behavior has often
relied on aggregate arrest rates or recidi-
vism statistics to develop or to test various
causal models. These conventional mea-
sures of criminality, however, confound
different aspects of individual offending
patterns. For example, a drop in the ag-
gregate crime rate may reflect a drop in
the proportion ofthe population engaging
in crime (level of participation), in the
average number of crimes committee! by
active offenders in a given time (inclivicI-
ual frequency), or in the average number
of years over which offenders commit
crimes (cluration of activity). A causal fac-
tor couIcI strongly affect one of these di-
mensions, but variation in the others
might mask that relationship if the aggre-
gate crime rate is used as the primary
measure of crime. Thus, as in most re-
search, when different factors affect dif-
ferent dimensions of a phenomenon of
interest, it is extremely important to iso
13
late those dimensions in order to assess
the influence of any factor.
Different sets of"causes" may influ-
ence individuals' decisions to initiate
criminal (or delinquent) activity, the fre-
quency with which they commit crimes,
the types of crimes committed, and their
decisions to stop committing crimes. At-
tention to these separate dimensions of
the criminal career can thus help to refine
theories of criminal behavior, since some
theoretical explanations may account for
the initiation of deviant acts by teenagers,
while very different theories may be
more relevant to the termination of seri-
ous criminality by adults or to fluctuations
in rates of offending cluring an active
criminal career. Thus, basic knowledge
about each component of individual crim-
inal careers is fundamental for an under-
standing of how various factors and gov-
ernment policies may encourage or
inhibit criminal activity.
For example, past research on the im-
pact of unemployment on crime has re-
sultec! in inconsistent conclusions. How-
ever, the inconsistent results may be a
consequence of the use of aggregate
crime rates as the depenclent variable. If
the relationship between unemployment
and criminal behavior were to be studied
at the individual level, the effects might
become more focused ant! consistent.
One might hypothesize, for example, that
variation in unemployment is not likely to
have much influence on the initiation of
criminal activity, which usually occurs in
the teenage years, before most people
have begun working, but that the oppor-
tunity for full-time employment leads to
early termination of teenagers criminal
activity. Separation of the dimensions of
individual careers might permit more
precise tests of these hypotheses.
Criminal careers may vary substantially
among offenders. At one extreme are of-
fenclers whose careers consist of only one
offense. At the over extreme are "career
,% , . . .
OCR for page 14
14
criminals" also variously characterized
as dangerous, habitual, or chronic offend-
ers who commit serious offenses with
high frequency over extended 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 affected by public
policy. Such knowledge will be espe-
cially useful in the design of crime con-
trol 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.
Individual-level data are fundamental
to the analysis of criminal careers. An
ideal approach for collecting data on the
individual offender would involve get-
ting a representative sample of offenders
to maintain accurate logs of their daily
criminal activity. In light of the obvious
difficulties in mounting such an effort,
two principal approaches have evolved
for estimating the information that might
be derived from those logs. One approach
uses retrospective self-reports, typified
by the work of Short and Nye (1958),
West and Farrington (1977), Chaiken and
Chaiken (1982a), and Elliott et al. (1983,
1985), which involves asking individuals
to report on their offenses over a recent
period. The other approach uses official
records, typified by the work of Wolfgang,
Figlio, and Sellin (1972), Blumstein and
Cohen (1979), and Shannon (1982a, b), in
which arrests are viewed as a sample of
the actual criminal activity that led to the
arrests. Each of these approaches relies
on different assumptions and introduces
different distortions into the resulting de-
scriptions of the underlying crime pro
cess.
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS
In principle, offender self-reports could
provide a complete picture of offending
over time, but inaccuracies are intro-
duced by respondents' selective nonre-
sponse, intentional distortion, and inabil-
ity to recall precise counts and sequences
of previous crimes. In contrast, an of-
fender's official arrest record provides
counts and sequences of offenses, but
only of those offenses recorded by police.
The records therefore reflect only a sam-
ple of all the offenses committed by an
individual and may occasionally include
notations of crimes that did not occur as
charged.) As a sample of the underlying
crime process, arrest records are distorted
by patterns in victims' willingness to re-
port crimes to the police, by differential
police attention to different crimes, and
by police discretion in deciding which
suspects to arrest, which arrests to record,
and what charges to file. Arrest histories
used in research may be incomplete be-
cause of failures to forward notations of all
arrests or to include arrests recorded in
jurisdictions over than the study site.
Only recently has attention turned to
iIn addition to the distortion that may result from
differences between actual offenses and arrests, the
issue of false arrests is an important concern when
inferring crimes from arrests. It is well established
that a majority of arrests fail to end in conviction
even for serious crimes. This differential raises
questions about the validity of assuming that every
arrest is properly associated with a crime and sug-
gests using only those arrests that are followed by
conviction. Two types of error are involved: using
arrests as indicators of crimes probably involves
some errors of commission because of false arrests;
using only convictions is more likely to involve
errors of omission. In adjudicating specific individ-
uals, of course, the presumption of innocence makes
the error of commission unacceptable. In assessing
the relative validity of data for research purposes,
however, there must be a relative weighing of these
two types of error. Reports by criminal justice prac-
titioners indicate that the errors of commission as-
sociated with using arrest records are far smaller
than the errors of omission that would occur if only
convictions were used.
OCR for page 15
INTRODUCTION: STUDYING CRIMINAL CAREERS
IS
ward synthesis of criminal career data
from both self-reports and official records.
Because of the limitations on the clata
from both sources, moclels are needed to
convert the observed information into es-
timates of the principal dimensions of
criminal careers. Such models have
emerged only in the last decade, largely
stimulated by the stochastic-process ap- ~
preach introduced by Avi-ItzEak and intensive supervision may well be effec
Shinnar (1973), which was followed sev
eral years later by empirical estimates of
various career dimensions. Later, atten
tion shifted to modeling the distributions
of those dimensions and identifying their
covariates (Chaiken and Chaiken, 1982a;
Greenwood, 1982~. This panel has con
tributed to that body of work by commis
sioning extensions of the modeling from
the perspectives of economics (Flinn,
Volume II) and stochastic processes
(Lehoczky, Volume II).
CRIME CONTROL POLICIES
The criminal justice system's efforts to
control crime take three forms: deter
rence, rehabilitation, ant! incapacitation.
Deterrence is the symbolic threat broad
cast to actual and potential offenders by
imposing punishment on identified of
fenders. Incapacitation is the removal of a
convicted offender from the community,
usually through imprisonment, to prevent
the offender from committing further
crimes. Rehabilitation is the modification
of an offender's criminal behavior. These
efforts to control crime are carried out in
conjunction with efforts to achieve other
goals of the criminal justice system, such
as imposing"deserved" punishment, en
hancing public confidence in the justice
system, and maintaining order in penal
facilities.
Knowledge for Policy
Knowledge about criminal careers may
be especially helpful in cleveloping effec
tive crime control policies. The appropri-
ate response to crime will differ depend-
ing on whether the aggregate crime rate is
the result of a small group of high-fre-
quency offenders or a large group of of-
fenders who commit crimes infrequently.
In the former situation- Tow participation
combined with high individual fre-
auenov strategies of incapacitation or
five and feasible. But if participation is
high, incapacitating many offenders
would be impractical, and other crime
control strategies involving efforts to pre-
vent participation wouIcl be more effec-
tive and feasible.
Distinguishing among the various di-
mensions of criminal careers may also
serve to enhance the crime control poten-
tial of alternative strategies by more effec-
tively targeting various crime control ef-
forts. The effectiveness of incapacitation
as a crime control strategy, for example,
depends not only on how frequently of-
fenders commit serious crimes, but also
on the duration of an offender's career.
From the perspective of incapacitation,
prison capacity is used inefficiently if of-
fenders are imprisoned beyond the time
at which their criminal activity would
have terminated if they were free on the
street. Therefore, it is reasonable to ask
whether "habitual-offender" laws, which
mandate very Tong sentences, may result
in incarceration of offenders well after
they have ceases! to be serious risks.
Effective policy strategies may also
emerge from knowledge about individual
offending patterns and the relationship of
different attributes of offenders to the di-
mensions of their criminal careers. For
example, early indicators of likely partic-
ipation in criminal activity, such as edu-
cational difficulties or disruptive school
behavior, suggest preventive strategies
like preschool education or family-orien-
ted treatment, which may reduce partici-
pation in crime. In contrast, career modi-
fication or rehabilitation strategies seek to
OCR for page 16
16
terminate or reduce criminal activity
through counseling, group therapy, job
training, or similar programs. If heavy
drinking and drug use are found dispro-
portionately among high-rate offenders,
intervention strategies might focus on
treatment for substance abuse. If fre-
quent, serious offenders can be identified
by using characteristics of the offense or
the offender, the criminal justice system
could use incapacitation strategies effec-
tively.
Knowledge of the factors that are asso-
ciated with variations in criminal careers
can also be helpful in assessing existing
policies and practices. For example, if a
particular criminal justice system rou-
tinely imposes long sentences on offend-
ers who commit serious crimes at a high
rate, then it is already enhancing crime
control by using incarceration to incapac-
itate offenders. But if incapacitation deci-
sions implicitly invoke characteristics
that are irrelevant to offenders' careers or
use characteristics inappropriately-such
as imposing long sentences on all young
black offenders then wicler use of career
knowledge could contribute to incapac-
itative effectiveness.
At the aggregate level, relationships
between criminal careers and demo-
graphic variables can be used to forecast
changes in crime volume or in the size
and composition of prison populations
arising from demographic changes in the
general population. When combined with
data on criminal justice system perform-
ance (e.g., arrest probabilities, judge's
time required per case, conviction-to-
arrest ratios, average time served per
incarceration), criminal justice system re-
source requirements can also be pro-
jected. Knowledge of crime-specific of-
fending frequencies and their correlates
could also be user] to estimate the inca-
pacitative crime-reduction effects of alter-
native incarceration policies. Thus, in a
number of ways, knowledge of criminal
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS
careers and their correlates can refine the
analysis of criminal justice policies.
Classification of Offenders
Selective treatment of offenders in the
criminal justice system is one way to
direct criminal justice discretion more ef-
fectively toward reducing the level of
crime. Recent research findings have re-
kindlecl interest in basing selection ex-
plicitly on classifications derived from
empirically demonstrated relationships
between specific variables and criminal
career dimensions, especially the fre-
quency of serious criminal activity. In
various ways, such information has long
been used as a selection criterion: in
formal ways in parole release decisions
and in structuring prosecution priorities
for "career criminal units" and more often
informally in setting pretrial release con-
ditions and sentencing. The recently dis-
cussed crime control strategy of"selec-
tive incapacitation" at sentencing (e.g.,
Greenwood, 1982) is based on selection
rules defined explicitly in terms of fre-
quency classifications. More generally,
classifications defined in terms of avail-
able, reliable, and legally usable informa-
tion about offenders and their offenses
could be used as one of the bases for
selection at such criminal justice decision
points as arrest, pretrial release, prosecu-
tion, sentencing, and parole.
Selective treatment involves implicit or
explicit use of classifications related to
the frequency and duration of serious
offending. Since those career dimensions
cannot be directly observed for individu-
als in the context of high-volume criminal
justice decision making, offender cIassifi-
cations are operationally defined in terms
of other variables that are routinely mea-
surable and that are correlatecl with Me
frequency, seriousness, or duration of the
criminal career. Criminal justice process-
ing based on these classifications is, in
OCR for page 17
INTRODUCTION: STUDYING CRIMINAL CAREERS
turn, subject to statutory anc! constitu-
tional constraints. Within these con-
straints, classification and selection rules
involve articulating a balance between
the competing objectives of protecting
the community against harm by offenders
anc! protecting the presumer! offender
from unjust treatment by the state.
Ethical Considerations
Invoking precliction-basec] cIassifica
· . . . · . . . .
tons In cr~m~na Justice c recisions raises a
number of important ethical concerns.
When, if ever, is it appropriate to invoke
preclictions of future criminal activity in
criminal justice decisions? Is a difference
in preclictec! future criminal activity a
legitimate basis for imposing different
sanctions for the same crime? What level
of predictive accuracy is necessary to jus-
tify using predictions? What balance is
appropriate between the harm clone to
offenders anc! that clone to the community
by different types of prediction errors?
ShouIc! some effective predictor variables
be explicitly ignorer! for ethical reasons?
These ethical concerns have a direct
bearing on the policy uses of scientific
knowledge about criminal careers. For
this reason, their implications for criminal
justice policies are important consider-
ations in both Chapters 5 and 6, in which
Me crime control uses of criminal career
knowledge and the efficacy of precliction-
based decisions are examined.
Many of the ethical issues considered
are matters of long-stancling legal and
philosophical debate. The resolution of
some issues may rest on absolute princi-
ples, but more often it involves a balanc-
ing of competing ethical concerns. It is
thus reasonable to anticipate that the
principles governing the use of predic-
tion-based classification rules as an aid to
criminal justice decision makers will
evolve, changing as public concerns
about crime ebb ant! flow ant! as im
17
proved knowledge about inclividual crim-
inal careers is developed.
DIMENSIONS OF CRIMINAL
CAREERS
The panel's characterization of crimi-
nal careers partitions crime into four di-
mensions: one dimension describes the
fraction of a population becoming offencI-
ers by virtue of participation in crime;
three others describe active offenders in
terms of the frequency, seriousness, and
duration of their activity. The criminal
career paradigm presumes that offending
is not pervasive throughout a population,
but is restricted to a subset of the popula-
tion. This subset consists of active of-
fenders those who commit at least one
crime during some observation period. It
also presumes that the composition of
active offenders varies over time as some
criminal careers are initiated and others
terminate.
Participation
The measurement of participation the
fraction of a population that is criminally
active depends on the scope of criminal
acts considered and the length of obser-
vation periods.2 Including minor infrac-
tions in the scope of crime types greatly
increases the level of participation in of
2In the literature reviewed by the panel, the term
"prevalence" is often used to refer to the current
involvement of some portion of a sample in criminal
activity, but occasionally to other measures of par-
ticipation. The term "incidence" is usually used to
refer to the per capita crime rate for the sample but
occasionally to refer to individual frequency. In
short, these terms have been used inconsistently by
many researchers for decades. To avoid confusion,
the panel adopted the vocabulary being introduced
here. The relationship between the panel's frame-
work and other individual and aggregate statistics
on criminal behavior is discussed in the section,
"Basic Definitions and Symbols."
OCR for page 18
18
fencling in a population. Longer obser-
vation periods also increase participa-
tion measures, since more offenders who
commit offenses only rarely will be in-
cluded as will more offenders who are
initiating or terminating their criminal
activity. Conversely, restricting the crite-
ria to focus only on serious offenses and
using short observation periods will re-
sult in lower measures of current partici-
pation.
In any observation period, active of-
fenders include both new offenders
whose first offense occurs cluring the ob-
servation period and persisting offenders
who began criminal activity in an earlier
period and continue to be active during
the observation period. Participation in
any observation period thus depends on
the number of indivicluals who become
offenders ant! on how long offenders re-
main active. The longer the duration of
offending, the greater the contribution of
persisters to measured participation in
successive observation periods.
Individual Frequency Rates,
Seriousness, and Duration
Individual frequency rates the num-
oer of crimes per year per active of-
fender vary substantially among offend-
ers, with some having very high rates and
others low rates of offending. For any
indiviclual, frequency rates may vary over
time. Because they commit more crimes
per unit of time, high-rate offenders con-
tribute clisproportionately to the total
measured number of crimes.
Many different offense types may con-
tribute to an individuals frequency rate.
The scope of offending for individual of-
fenders may vary from "specialists" (who
engage predominantly in only one of-
fense or a group of closely relater! offense
types) to "generalists" (who engage in
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS
a wide variety of offense types). The
degree of specialization may also vary
across offense types, with some offense
types committed predominantly by spe-
ciaTists ant] other types routinely commit-
ted by generalists. The mix of offense
types committed by offenders may also
vary over the course of their careers, with
offenders becoming either more or less
speciaTizecI, and with the mix of offense
types escalating or de-escalating in seri
ousness.
The duration of criminal careers can
also be expected to vary across inclividual
offenders. It is likely that many criminal
careers are very short, ending in the teen-
age years. However, some offenders con-
tinue to commit crimes into their 30s and
even older ages. Thus, it is important to
understand average total career length
and the factors that distinguish offenders
with Tong careers from offenders with
short careers. But to understand the im-
pact of decisions made about individual
offenders, it is also extremely important to
understand residual career length, the
expected time remaining in an offender's
criminal career at the time of the deci
sion.
Basic Definitions and Symbols
To use these concepts to organize re-
search results that have been developed
in a variety of paradigms, the panel found
it necessary to adopt consistent vocabu-
lary and symbols for labeling the key
dimensions that characterize individual
criminal careers. This need arises from a
confusion in the literature over specific
terminology for individual and aggregate
crime data. The confusion can be seen
clearly, for example, in the variety of
referents of the tend "rate" in the litera-
ture: to a population (e.g., prevalence
rate, the fraction of mates ever participat
OCR for page 19
INTRODUCTION: STUDYING CRIMINAL CAREERS
ing in crime); to a time period (e.g., fre-
quency rate, the inclivicluaT's annual
frequency of offending); or to both simul-
taneously (e.g., crime rate, the annual
crime index per capita).3
The symbols and definitions adopted
by the panel are displayed in Table 1-1.
Symbols in the seconc! column describe
the crime process, i.e., the actual offend-
ing process; symbols in the third column
clescnbe the arrest process from which
3Crime itself is a heterogeneous phenomenon,
and a variety of terminology has developed to dis-
tinguish more serious or less serious crimes. This
report is primarily concerned with serious crimes,
which are classified herein in several ways. Per-
sonal crimes encompass homicide, aggravated as-
sault, and rape. Rape and homicide are relatively
infrequent, and data are not usually reported sepa-
rately by researchers for these crimes. The FBI
includes these three crimes and robbery in their
definition of violent crimes. Safety crimes include
violent crimes and burglary. The five safety crimes
plus larceny and auto theft are frequently referred to
as index crimes, because they are included in the
Part I crime index reported in the FBI's annual
Uniform Crime Reports. In 1981, arson was added
to the FBI's crime index; however, because report-
ing of arson was sporadic before that year, it is rarely
included in the research reviewed here. Property
crimes typically include burglary, larceny, and auto
theft. In addition to the Part I index crimes, the FBI
also uses the category of Part II crimes, which are
recorded separately, are less often reported to police
(e.g., white-collar crimes), are less serious (e.g.,
public order crimes), and include "victimless"
crimes (e.g., prostitution, drug use). Some research-
ers also distinguish between a felony and a misde-
meanor: the former is usually defined in statutes as
any crime carrying a sentence length of at least 1
year. Delinquency has a less precise definition: it
can refer to traditional youth crimes, such as truancy
or underage drinking (sometimes called status of-
fenses because they are only offenses as a result of
the status, i.e., age, of the offender), or it can refer to
any crime committed by someone under the age of
majority.
Virtually all the research discussed in this report
is on male offenders; hence, the pronoun "he" is
used exclusively in referring to offenders.
19
much of the available information about
the unclerlying crime process is clerived.
We begin with the aggregate annual
crime rate per capita (C) that is normally
reported to the public in the press, and
partition it into its component parts: one
that focuses on the inclividual offender
and his individual offending frequency
measurer! in terms of crimes per year, A,
and another that describes the current
participation rate of offenders in the pop-
ulation at any time All. These three key
variables are linked by the relationship
C = Acl. Thus, for example, an aggregate
crime rate of 1,000 crimes in a population
base of 100,000 people could be a conse-
quence of 10 criminals each committing
an average of 100 crimes (d = 10/100,000,
and A = 100) or 100 criminals committing
10 crimes each (c! = 100/100,000, and A =
101. The two situations present different
problems in the clevelopment of crime
control strategies.
Much of the literature is not concerned!
with the current rate of participation in
crime (cl) but with the question of what
fraction of a population has ever been
involved in crime. This is simply the
accumulation of new participants over
time. We denote cumulative participa-
tion by the relater! symbol D. (For further
discussion of definitional issues relating
to participation, see Appendix A.)
Comparable symbols are cleaned for
the arrest process, which is often the only
source of information about inclividual
criminal careers. The counterpart to the
crime rate (C) is the number of arrests per
capita per year, A. The average number
of arrests experienced per year by active
offenders is denoted by A. The percent of
a population that is arrested (or "busted")
within some observation period is de-
noted by b. A relationship similar to that
in the crime process exists for the arrest
process, A = ,ub. Finally, as an analogue
OCR for page 20
20
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS
TABLE 1-1 Glossary of Basic Symbols and Relationships
.
Measure
Measure Based on
Crimes and Arrests
Aggregate crime rate per capita
per year
Individual frequency per active
offender
Current participation rate
Cumulative participation rate
Aggregate crime rate per capita:
frequency per active offender
times participation rate
Symbol and Definition
Crime Process
C Crimes per capita per year
A Crimes per year per active of-
fender
d Percent of a population com-
mitting a crime within a year
,``, . ..
~ doing
D Percent of a population ever
committing a crime
C = Ad
Arrest Process
A Arrests per capita per year
,u Arrests per year per active of-
fender
b Percent of a population ar-
rested for crimes within a
year ("busted")
B Percent of a population ever
arrested
A = ,ub
Other Measures
Arrest probability q = Probability of arrest following a crime (q = ,u/A)
Career length T = Total criminal career length
Residual career length TR = Average time remaining in a criminal career
Career dropout rate ~ = Fraction of a criminal population whose careers terminate
during an observation period
to the cumulative participation rate in
crime, we denote the fraction of a popu-
lation that is ever arrested as B.4
The arrest process can be viewed as a
sampling from the crime process, since
not all crimes result in arrest. This linkage
is reflected in the "sampling probability"
or the probability that a crime will result
in an arrest, denoted by q. The two key
individual rates, ,u and A, are thus linked
through q by the relationship ,u = Act.
Thus, for example, if an offender commits
crimes per year and there is a 10 percent
chance that commission of a crime will
lead to an arrest, then the average arrest
rate, A, should be 840.1) or 0.8 arrests per
year.
The final principal construct for which
we use symbols is the total criminal ca
4Many studies use an alternative official-record
indicator of an event, such as referral to juvenile
court or conviction. For notational simplicity, we
symbolize fractions involving all these events by B
and b, but recognize in discussion the implications
of these more stringent thresholds for empirical
results.
reer length, T. denoting the number of
years over which an offender is criminally
active. In many cases, we are more inter-
ested in the residual career length, the
number offuture years a currently active
offender is expected to remain active, and
we denote this length by TR. The fraction
of careers that terminate during an obser-
vation period is denotecl by the career
dropout rate, B.
Obviously, estimates of the criminal ca-
reer dimensions represented by these sym-
bols will vary by crime type, across dig
ferent population groups, and in different
settings. In the text of the report, we occa-
sionally distinguish these different varia-
tions of the basic criminal career dimen-
sions. The glossary presented in Table 1-1
should therefore be helpful as a continuing
reference in reading that material.
Basic Mode} of a Criminal Career
The basic criminal career paradigm pro-
vides a framework for organizing knowI-
edge about the dimensions that describe
OCR for page 21
INTRODUCTION: STUDYING CRIMINAL CAREERS
~ ~ Criminal
Am_ Events
a,
a:
._
C'
~5
._
._
X-
-
43)= Arrest
~ =
.~ = I Incarceration
FIGURE 1-1 An individual criminal career.
individual criminal behavior. It permits
specification of relationships among the
dimensions and computation of statistics
that describe offending in an observed
sample, such as a cohort of individuals
followed over time, a cross-section of ac-
tive offenders arrested during some time
interval, or matched controVexperimental
groups being studied to assess the impact
of some intervention.
Figure 1-1 presents a highly simplified
framework that introduces the essential
concepts of the criminal career. The top
of the figure represents a sequence of
events during the criminal career of an
active offender. On the line, the symbol x
denotes the times at which the offender
committed crimes. Symbols of crimes for
which the offender was arrested are cir
21
Period of
I ncarceration
Crime aO
~Criminal Career Length T
Conviction ,
Age of
Onset
I,,,-------i_
Residual
Criminal-Career
Length Following
Release, TR
End of
I Criminal
Career
~ AGE
aT
cled, and the crimes for which the arrest
led to conviction are enclosed in a square.
The shaded area indicates a period when
the offender was incarcerated following
conviction. In theory, all incidents
marked x could be reported by the of-
fender in a self-report survey, while only
the circled ones could appear in an of-
ficial arrest record.
A person initiates criminal activity at
some time. That first offense may involve
a conscious personal choice, it may follow
from the development of a new set of
associations developed, or it may be an
inadvertent consequence of other
changes in the individuaT's life. Once the
offender has begun his criminal involve-
ment, it continues for some period of
time, perhaps increasing or decreasing in
OCR for page 22
22
frequency. Finally, the person terminates
his criminal career, possibly because of
death, but more typically at a relatively
young age, after which his probability of
offending within any observation period
is small enough to be ignored.
The minimum representation, which
clearly omits many of the complexities of
a real career, is represented in the lower
portion of Figure 1-1. The offender is
assumed to begin criminal activity at
some "age of onset," aO, but his official
record does not reflect onset until some
later time, at the point of his first arrest.
Once begun, the offender continues to
commit crimes at a constant rate A during
any time that he is not incarcerated. The
career ends when the last crime is com-
mitted, represented at age aT in Figure
1-1.
The representation in Figure 1-1 in-
vokes three primary elements of informa-
tion: the frequency or mean individual
crime rate, A, the age at career initiation,
and the duration of the criminal career, T.
Each of these three dimensions of a ca-
reer varies across offenders. This varia-
tion may be influenced by personal
events associated with the individual or
by broader forces such as sanction levels
or other community characteristics.
Extensions of the Basic Mode!
This simple representation can be ex-
tended to more richly describe a criminal
career. Possibilities include a"start-up"
time during which an offender's fre-
quency increases, a decrease in fre-
quency toward the end of a career, and
sporadic spurts or intermittent recesses
from criminal activity. If the intervals be-
tween spurts are much shorter than a
typical sentence, the intermittent pattern
may be ignored and the average A used as
a consideration in setting sentencing pol-
icy. But if the intervals of inactivity are
long, then separate estimates are needed
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS
for high- and low-rate periods and for the
duration of these periods, to adequately
estimate average A. In addition, spurts in
activity make it difficult to obtain informa-
tion from offenders for use in estimating
average annual rates. Distinctions among
different offense types can also be made,
permitting attention to single offenses
(e.g., "robbery careers") or to patterns of
switching among offense types during a
career. In this context, it is important to
know whether offenders are more likely
to be "specialists" (who engage in only
one or a small group of offenses) or "gen-
eralists" (who switch more widely among
a range of offenses). Last, extensions of
the basic mode] can address whether of-
fending patterns typically "escalate" in
the seriousness of successive events so
that crimes later in the career are more
serious, or whether they peak in serious-
ness in mid-career and then begin to
^~ v ~ ^. ,,, ~ _ _
decline in seriousness as a career nears its
end.
USING THE CRIMINAL CAREER
PARADIGM
Interpreting Aggregate Crime Rates
The criminal career paradigm adopted
here represents a departure from analyses
that have focused on aggregate measures,
such as incidence rates of crimes per
capita or arrests per capita. Applying to
active offenders and nonoffenders alike in
a population, these aggregate measures
confound the combined contribution of
the extent of participation and the fre-
quency of offending by active offenders.
Despite this confounding of different as-
pects of individual offending, variations
in aggregate measures have served as the
basis for much of the broadly accepted
current knowledge on the causes and cor-
relates of crime.
Perhaps the most widely accepted
view of crime is that it varies substantially
OCR for page 23
INTRODUCTION: STUDYING CRIMINAL CAREERS
100
90
80
. .
o
~ A, 70
~ Cal
Q ~
O ~ 60
a,
O ~
8< 50
o Y
° a,
a, ~40
Q o
In 4'
4 - ~
~0
20
10
Age 1 7A~ "Age 21
il
11.
11. i\
\1\
\\
\\
Age 21 \
Age Z ~ `\
Peak
Arrest Rates
{arrests
Offense per 100,000
Type population)
Robbery
---Burglary
· · · ~ ~ Aggravated
: assault
.
Ace 24 G'. Age 36
"art...
O 1 ~1 ,1
317
1 ,1 26
340
a,
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Age (years)
FIGURE 1-2 1983 U.S. age-specific arrest rates (arrests per 100,000 population of each
age). The curve for each offense type is displayed as a percentage of the peak arrest rate.
The curves show the age at which the peak occurs (at 100 percent) and the age at which
the rate falls to 50 percent ofthe peak rate. Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation (1984~.
with age. While varying in absolute mag-
nitude, aggregate population arrest rates
display a very consistent pattern in-
creasing rapidly during the juvenile years
to reach peak rates in the late teens and
then steadily declining.S Figure 1-2 illus-
trates this pattern for the FBI index of-
fenses of robbery, aggravated assault, and
burglary in 1983. Analyses of recidivism
rates for identified offenders have also
Historically, arrest rates peaked in an offender's
early twenties. This pattern was observed as early as
1831 in France (Quetelet, 1984~; recent reviews of
this research can be found in Greenberg (1983),
Hirschi and Gottfredson (1983), and Farrington
(1986~.
23
found a decline in criminal involvement
for older offenders.6 The declines in of-
fending observed in aggregate data and
recidivism measures have been charac-
terized as "maturing out of crime" and
have been attributed to physiological and
social changes with age that lead to grad-
ual reductions in criminal involvement.
These analyses, however, do not tell
the full story. The distinctive age patterns
6See, for example, Glueck and Glueck (1937,
1940), Sellin (1958), and more recently, studies of
differential success on parole release (e.g., Hoffman
and Beck, 1980; Rhodes et al., 1982; Bureau of
Justice Statistics, 1984c).
OCR for page 24
24
in aggregate measures may be due either
to changes in participation or in individ-
ual frequency rates for active offenders.
In the former case, the peak rates of crim-
inal activity would result from growing
participation in crime during the late teen
years, followed by declining participation
as increasing numbers of offenders end
their criminal careers. In the latter case,
peak rates would arise from variations in
the intensity of offending by a fairly fixed
group of active offenders, with indiviclu-
als' frequency rates increasing during the
juvenile years and then gradually declin-
ing with age.
Distinguishing between these alterna-
tive processes has both theoretical signif-
icance for understanding the causes of
crime, as well as operational implications
for efforts to control crime. From the the-
oretical perspective, the participation and
frequency alternatives have implications
for whether causes should be sought in
broad social processes affecting the gen-
eral population and people's movement
into and out of criminal careers or in more
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS
arrest rates also show large differences in
levels of criminal activity between whites
and blacks. As shown in Table 1-2, the
differences between races increase as one
focuses on more serious offense types,
and have decreased in recent years. How-
ever, large differences between races are
generally not fount! when recidivism
rates for black and white offenders are
compared (Wolfgang, Figlio, and Sellin,
1972:28~289; Blumstein and Graddy,
1982:28~284; Bureau of Justice Statis-
tics, 19846:Table 10~. The differences in
aggregate measures by sex and race re-
flect the combined contributions of differ-
ences in levels of participation in crime
and differences in frequency for active
offenders~istinct phenomena with very
different policy implications.
Demographic Correlates of Criminal
Careers
Demographic variables have received
considerable attention, primarily because
they are widely available in data on the
isolated processes affecting only active general population, are easily observed
offenders and their activity patterns. '
From a policy perspective, distinguishing
between these alternatives has implica-
tions for Me relative effectiveness of ef-
forts to reduce peak levels of offending in
the late teens by preventing participation
by new offenders or by targeting inter-
vention more narrowly at already active
offenders.
Similar concerns about disentangling
the relative contributions of participation,
frequency, and duration emerge when
considering other offender attributes. The
sex of offenders is potentially an impor-
tant factor in characterizing individual
offending. Very large differences be-
tween mates and females are observed
both in aggregate arrest rates (see Table
1-2) and in recidivism rates (Bureau of
Justice Statistics, 19846), with substan-
tially higher rates for males. Aggregate
by crime Scums ana police, ana are rou-
tinely recorded for identification pur-
poses in data from administrative and
operational agencies. Data on dimensions
of criminal careers are therefore wiclely
available for different demographic sub-
~rouns defined in terms of age, sex, and
race. The strong empirical associations
observed between the demographic vari-
ables and aggregate arrest rates (see Ta-
ble 1-2 and Figure 1-2, above) have gen-
eratec3 substantial debate about the
causes of subpopulation differences. But
much ambiguity surrounds the underly-
ing theoretical meaning of differences in
criminal behavior between mates and fe-
maTes (see PolIack, 1950; Adler, 1975;
Nagel and Hagan, 1984), among racial
and ethnic groups (e.g., Moynihan, 1965;
Berger and Simon, 1974), and most re-
cently, across age (Greenberg, 1983;
OCR for page 25
INTRODUCTION: STUDYING CRIMINAL CAREERS
TABLE 1-2 U.S. Sex- andRace-SpecificArrestRates in 1970 and 1980
25
Offense Type Arrests per 1,000 Population Ratiosa
Sex-Specific Arrest Rates
Males
1970 1980
Females
1970 1980
Male/Female
1970 1980
All (except traffic) 76 81 12 14 6.3 5.6
All index 14 17 3 4 5.2 4.6
PropertyC 11 14 2 3 4.6 4.0
Violent 2 3 0.2 0.3 8.0 8.3
Robbery 1 1 0.1 0.1 16.2 13.6
Race-Specific Arrest Rates
Whites
1970 1980
Blacks
1970 1980
Black/White
1970 1980
All (except traffic) 35 40 107 97 3.1 2.4
All index 6 8 28 29 4.7 3.7
Property 5 7 20 21 4.0 3.2
Violent 0.6 1 4 5 7.3 4.6
Robbery 0.2 0.3 3 3 15.4 10.3
NOTE: Rates are estimated from the number of reported arrests in 1980 (Federal Bureau of
Investigation, 1981) and 1980 population figures (Bureau of the Census, 1983:Table 33~. Similar data are
available for adults and juveniles separately. Arrest rates for 1970 are estimated from the number of
arrests reported in 1970 (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1971) and 1970 population figures (Bureau of
the Census, 1983:Table 331. To adjust for agencies not reporting to the FBI, reported arrests are increased
by the ratio of total population available from the Bureau of the Census to the population covered by
reporting agencies. This assumes that the arrest rates and population distribution in nonreporting
agencies are similar to those available for reporting agencies.
aThese ratios were computed before the arrest rates were rounded.
bIndex rates include arrests for murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and motor
vehicle theft.
CProperty rates include arrests for burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft.
Violent rates include arrests for murder, rape, and aggravated assault.
Hirschi and GottEredson, 1984; Green-
berg, 1985; Wilson anal Herrnstein, 1985;
Farrington, 1986~.
While demographic differences ac-
count for large portions of the variability
in aggregate measures of criminal in-
volvement, these differentials reflect rela-
tionships with other variables that are not
yet well understood. For example, over
the years, explanations offered for the
differences between males and females
have variously been biological differ-
ences, differences in moral training, dif-
ferences in socialization experiences, and
fewer criminal opportunities for girls be-
cause they are more closely supervised.
These changes over time in interpreta
tion of demographic differentials reflect
the changing social contexts in which this
research has been carried out.
Recently, Peterson and Hagan (1984)
argued that criminal justice research on
differences between racial and ethnic
groups should be viewer! in an historical
context. In the first half of this century,
American research on criminal behavior
focused on the criminality of newly ar-
rivecI ethnic groups, the Irish ant! Italian
immigrants in large urban areas (e.g.,
Glueck and Glueck, 19401. Researchers
associated high crime rates among urban
ethnic groups with a vast array of social
problems, including Tow-paying jobs,
poor housing, and weak ties to the "dom
OCR for page 26
26
inant" culture. Slowly the emphasis in
racial/ethnic studies of criminal behavior
has shifted to comparisons of white and
black Americans. This shift in attention
probably reflects the changing demo-
graphic composition in large cities from a
variety of ethnic minorities to blacks as
the dominant minority and the most re-
cent arrivals to large urban areas. Even
more recently, other racial/ethnic groups-
Hispanics and Southeast Asians have
begun to receive special attention (see
Moore et al., 1978; Zatz, 1984; LaFree,
1985).
The pane! did not attempt to resolve
the theoretical debates concerning age,
sex, and racial/ethnic differences in crim-
inal behavior. Empirical relationships are
reported because so much of the research
results are presented in these terms, and
because the differences are often large in
bivariate comparisons, robust in multi-
variate analyses, and stable across a vari-
ety of geographical and temporal settings
and data collection methods. However,
by allowing for different causal structures
for the initiation, persistence, and termi-
nation of offending, the partitioning ofthe
aggregate differentials into separate ca-
reer dimensions should facilitate better
theoretical interpretation. As suggested
above, one finding of research invoking
the criminal career paradigm has been
that the demographic differentials arise
more from differences in criminal partic-
ipation patterns, rather than in the fre-
quency or duration of individual offend-
ing.
Incapacitation, Rehabilitation, and
Deterrence
Analyses that partition the effects of
sanctions among participation, frequency,
and duration may provide valuable in-
sights for improving the effectiveness of
alternative crime control strategies. To
date, for example, evaluations of deter-
rent effects have relied almost exclusively
on aggregate crime rates, and evaluations
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS
of rehabilitative interventions have relied
primarily on recidivism rates. To the ex-
tent that participation, duration, and fre-
quency are differentially affected by de-
terrence, rehabilitation, or incapacitation
policies, important relationships may be
obscured in aggregate measures. Analy-
ses of the separate effects may provide
valuable insights for improving the crime
control effectiveness of deterrence and
rehabilitation policies. Crime control ef-
fectiveness may be improved by targeting
some strategies at reducing participation,
very different ones at encouraging career
termination among active offenders, and
still others at reducing frequency among
active offenders.
Incapacitation, which is usually a-
chieved by incarcerating active offenders,
is frequently presented in terms of the
criminal career paradigm. In Figure 1-3,
the shaded area indicating crimes pre-
vented during the period of incarceration
represents the "incapacitative effect."
Crime control effects through incapacita-
tion increase with the magnitude of indi-
vidual frequency, with the length of in-
carceration, and with the expected
duration of the criminal career. More spe-
cifically, higher frequency means more
crimes averted for each unit of time incar-
cerated. And longer career duration
means less likelihood of wasting incarcer-
ation on offenders who would have
ended their careers during the time they
were incarcerated and would therefore
not be committing any additional crimes
whether incarcerated or not.
The incapacitative effect actually
achieved will depend on the effective-
ness of the criminal justice system in
identifying and incarcerating offenders,
especially those with the highest rates of
offending. The incapacitative effect is re-
duced if criminals are not arrested, if
arrested criminals are not convicted, if
convicted criminals are not incarcerated,
if sentences are short, or if parole is early.
The incapacitative effect is further re-
duced if the crimes of an incarcerated
OCR for page 27
INTRODUCTION: STUDYING CRIMINAL CAREERS
_y~ Criminal
Events
~-~
. _
Cat
~5
._
._
-
X = Crime
By= Arrest
ma= Conviction
~ = I Incarceration
Period of
I Incarceration
I Incapacitation
Effect
Age of
Onset
C."'-2.--."2.
Hi-..''.......
,....
.~ .2..
f ~
So
Residual Crimin al Career _; T
Length Following Release, TR
Criminal Career Length, T
Criminogenic
Effect
Rehabilitation
Effect
End of
Criminal
Career
- AGE
FIGURE 1-3 Incapacitation, rehabilitation, and criminogenic effects in an individual
criminal career.
offender are replaced by crimes by other
offenders. This might occur, for example,
if the offender is part of an organized
illegal economic activity, like drug sales
or burglaries organized by a fence; in this
event, a replacement might simply be
recruited from the available "labor mar-
ket" to continue the crimes that would
otherwise be committed by the incarcer-
ated offender. If the offender is part of a
crime-committing group, the remaining
members of the group might continue
their crimes, with or without recruiting a
replacement. Group offending ant! its im-
plications for crime control are acIdressect
by Reiss (Volume II).
The criminal career construct dis-
cussed in this section is most directly
relater! to incapacitation, with its funcla-
mental objective of interrupting a crimi
27
nal career, but it also relates (Erectly to
the other two modes of crime control
user! by the criminal justice system, reha-
bilitation and deterrence. In most evalu-
ations of rehabilitation programs, effec-
tiveness is measurer! in terms of the
recidivism rate. Recidivism is usually
measured as the fraction of a release
group that is rearrested, usually within an
observation period! of 1 to 5 years.7 If the
7Recidivism is often also measured by reconvic-
tion or recommitment to an institution. Indeed,
there is considerable debate over the "true" value of
recidivism, which is unwarranted since measure-
ment at these different stages will provide different
numerical values, but usually not different relative
values when all measure the same process (see
Blumstein and Larson, 1971~. This discussion fo-
cuses on arrest, but it applies equally to any other
recidivism event.
OCR for page 28
28
offender depicted in Figure 1-3 received
effective rehabilitative treatment in
prison, its effect would be reflected as a
change in his criminal career: as a reduc-
tion in his offending rate, as a shift to less
serious crimes, or as a reduction in his
career length. The crimes avoided by
rehabilitation are depicted in Figure 1-3
by the dark gray area, "rehabilitation ef-
fect." These crimes are averted in adcli-
tion to those averted through incapaci-
tative effects during the period of impris-
onment.
However, incarceration can also be
counterproductive, criminogenic, if it
leacis to increases in postrelease criminal-
ity. This effect could be reflected by an
increase in frequency or career length,
depicted by the dotted area labeled
"criminogenic effect," in Figure 1-3, or
by an increase in the seriousness of
crimes committed.8 A criminogenic effect
may result from an offender's enhanced
identification as a"criminal," his learning
new criminal techniques from fellow
prisoners, or his strengthening ties to
other offenders. The net rehabilitation
effect is the rehabilitation effect less the
criminogenic effect. No empirical com-
parison of these two effects has yet been
carried out in the criminal career context.
However, major reviews of evaluations of
offender rehabilitation programs suggest
that the net aggregate rehabilitation and
criminogenic effect is small (Lipton,
Martinson, and Wilks, 1975; Sechrest,
White, ancl Brown, 19791.9
8A special case ofthis effect would be a postpone-
ment of the offender's criminal career, so that the
residual career length after release assumes the
same value it had when incarceration began. Thus,
the delay in the career is equal to the period of
incarceration, and the crimes avoided through inca-
pacitation are exactly offset by the same number of
crimes committed after the career would otherwise
have ended. If this effect occurs, incarceration
would delay crimes, but not reduce their number.
9Sechrest, White, and Brown (1979:34) caution
that the poor quality of the evaluations, and the
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS
The third principal mode of crime con-
troT by the criminal justice system, in
addition to incapacitation and rehabilita-
tion, is deterrence. Deterrence is the
crime-reduction effect achieved from the
symbolic threat communicated to other
offenders and to potential offenders by
sanctions imposed on identified offend-
ers.~° The most common mode for exam-
ining the deterrent effect has been cross-
sectional studies of jurisdictions with
diverse sanction practices to examine the
effect on aggregate crime rates of the
sanction variation (controlling for other
sources of variation in crime rate and in
sanction policy). This research has yet to
provide good estimates of the magnitude
of deterrent effects (see Blumstein,
Cohen, and Nagin, 1978~. To determine
the extent to which the deterrent effects
of sanctions work by inhibiting career
initiation, decreasing individual offend-
ing frequency, or encouraging career ter-
mination, it would be desirable for deter-
rence research to focus more specifically
on the effects of community sanction lev-
els on participation, and on the careers of
active offenders.
SCOPE OF THE PANEL'S REPORT
The above discussion has presented
the basic structural concepts involved in
the criminal career paradigm. Aside from
narrow range of options explored, militate against
excessive pessimism concerning the potential of
rehabilitation. But despite these qualifications, the
failure of hundreds of evaluations to find demonstra-
ble effects suggests that, given the current state of
research methodology and correctional manage-
ment, the net effect is fairly small.
i°This effect is often characterized as "general
deterrence" to distinguish it from "special deter-
rence," which refers to the effect of punishment on
later behavior of the person punished. In this report
special deterrence is considered an aspect of reha-
bilitation and the term deterrence refers to the
broader crime-reduction effects achieved through
general sanction policies.
OCR for page 29
INTRODUCTION: STUDYING CRIMINAL CAREERS
its intrinsic value, knowlecige about the
dimensions of criminal careers, their clis-
tribution in the population, ant] the fac-
tors that affect them, is important for a
variety of policy uses:
· identifying variables associates! with
the most serious offenders (in terms of
their criminal careers) so that such infor-
mation may be user! by decision makers,
within legal ant! ethical constraints, to
anticipate future criminal activity by an
offender about whom they must make a
· . ~
processing c .eclslon;
· identifying variables that are wiclely
but erroneously viewer] as predictors of
offenders' future criminal activity;
· improving identification of high-risk
offenders ant] designing programs likely
to be effective for them;
· better assessment ofthe magnitude of
incapacitative effects uncler current or
proposer! imprisonment policies, possi-
bly leacling to more efficient use of lim-
itec! prison space; ant]
· planning research programs that will
built! on existing knowlecige ant! provide
more effective policy directions over the
next clecacle.
In its work, the panel focuses] primar-
ily, though not exclusively, on criminal
careers that involve robbery, burglary,
and aggravates! assault, inclucling inci-
clents leacling to the victim's cleath. This
decision was motivated by the scarcity of
research on careers that involve only
other offense types, by the priority given
to those crimes by policy makers, and by
the fear of those crimes expressed by the
public (see, for example, Research and
Forecasts, Inc., 19801. The following
crime types were excluded from the pan-
el's primary focus: arson, "white-colIar"
crime (e.g., embezzlement, securities
fraud, mad! fraud), and organized crime,
for which neither extensive prior emp1rl-
cal research nor the requisite data exist;
"victimless" crimes (e.g., prostitution,
29
gambling, and drug use or possession);
minor sex offenses and other deviant be-
haviors, for which offenders are com-
monly cliverted from criminal justice to
mental health or community treatment
agencies; minor property offenses; and
status offenses (acts that are illegal only
when committed by juveniles). Although
these types of offenses were not of pri-
mary interest, the pane! did review stucI-
ies that related them to the major crime
types considered by the panel. For exam-
ple, the panel was particularly interested
in the relationship of minor clelinquent
acts to later adult careers involving rob-
bery, burglary, and aggravated assault.
The pane] also focused primarily,
though not exclusively, on research that
involves! incliviclual-leve! data on crimi-
nal careers of large samples representing
clearly defined populations. Examples in-
clude analyses of arrest histories of an
urban birth cohort, self-reports of offend-
ing by high school students, self-reports
of incarcerated offenders, and arrest his-
tories of criminals who are active during
some observation period. Overall, the re-
search reviewer! by the pane! represents
most of the literature that is relevant to
the study of indiviclual criminal careers.
Several categories of research literature
that study criminal behavior using para-
digms other than the criminal career as
defined in this report were not systemat-
ically included. Biographical and auto-
biographical case studies of individual
offenders are excluded because the sub
- jects are not generally representative of
specific offender populations. Most eco-
logical studies (,urisdiction-leve] analy-
ses) generally relate aggregate crime
measures to community or jurisdictional
characteristics and do not inclu(le infor-
mation about dimensions of individual
criminal careers. Most recidivism studies
lack sufficient detail on the number and
timing of postrelease arrests that would
be necessary for estimating annual of
OCR for page 30
30
fending frequencies and te~ination
rates; hence, many research reports and
program evaluations that user] recidivism
as the only measure of criminal behavior
were not reviewed. Finally the research
reviewed is primarily based on U.S. sam-
ples; a few studies of British and Danish
populations are also included. The panel
limited its review almost exclusively to
studies published in English.
While much of the panel's work as
with all research- is concerned with the
eventual development of causal theory,
the panel did not pursue any particular
theoretical tradition. This approach re-
flects the panel's recognition that synthe-
sizing the available statistical descrip-
tions of criminal careers wit! contribute to
many theoretical approaches. However,
development and refinement of causal
theory about criminal careers should
evolve from much more intensive inves-
tigation of the various dimensions of
criminal careers than the literature now
contains. Ideally, this investigation
should proceed with a mixture of ethno-
graphic studies to generate detafled hy-
potheses, longitudinal studies to explore
temporal sequences, ant! field experi-
ments to rigorously test hypotheses.
In considering the effect of influences
possibly associated with reducing crime,
the criminal career approach with its
focus on individual offenders naturally
suggests various influences that operate
at the individual level to prevent initia-
tion of a career, reduce the frequency of
offending, interrupt the career, or encour-
age termination of a career. Individual-
leve! influences on careers (e.g., matura-
tion, family influences) and planned
interventions grounded in knowledge
l
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS
about those influences (e.g., substance
abuse treatment, incapacitation through
incarceration) were reviewed by the
panel. However, they are not the only
ways in which individual careers are in-
fluenced. Indiviclual criminal careers are
also influenced in broader ways, such as
through planned community-level inter-
ventions and uncontrolled events in the
community (e.g., a factory shutdown).
These other influences may operate
through the social, economic, political, or
environmental structure of the commu-
nity in which indivicluals grow up or live,
the social networks with which they be-
come involved, or the deterrence effects
generated by local sanctioning practices.
Over time, all of these may change and
therefore alter the nature of criminal ca-
reers. Therefore, their relationships to ca-
reers should be objects of future research.
But because so little research is currently
available that links these community-
level effects to inclividual criminal ca-
reers, the panel did not address these
broader relationships.
With the framework (leveloped in this
chapter for characterizing individual
criminal careers, Chapters 2 and 3 review
the existing empirical knowledge about
criminal careers, and Chapter 4 reviews
the methodological problems in studying
inclividual careers. Chapter 5 considers
the uses of this information in assessing
different types of interventions intencled
to modify criminal careers. Chapter 6 con-
siders the effects of incorporating knowl-
edge about criminal careers into explicit
classification rules intended to aid crimi-
nal justice decision making. The last
chapter presents an agenda for future re-
search on criminal careers.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
criminal career
