This book examines several contentious and under-studied criminal career issues using one of the world's most important longitudinal studies, the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD), a longitudinal study of 411 South London boys followed in criminal records to age 40. The analysis reported in the book explores issues related to prevalence, offending frequency, specialization, onset sequences, co-offending, chronicity, career length, and trajectory estimation. The results of the study are considered in the context of developmental/life-course theories, and the authors outline an agenda for criminal career research generally, and within the context of the CSDD specifically.
Author(s): Alex R. Piquero, David P. Farrington, Alfred Blumstein
Series: Cambridge Studies in Criminology
Edition: 1
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2007
Language: English
Pages: 256
Cover......Page 1
Half-title......Page 3
Series-title......Page 5
Title......Page 7
Copyright......Page 8
Contents......Page 9
Foreword......Page 11
Acknowledgments......Page 15
CHAPTER ONE Introduction......Page 17
CHAPTER TWO Overview of Criminal Careers......Page 23
The Criminal Career Paradigm......Page 25
Dimensions of a Criminal Career......Page 26
Policy Issues......Page 32
"Chronic" Offenders......Page 33
Policy Implications......Page 35
Individual Prediction of Lambda......Page 36
Sentence Duration......Page 39
Research on Career Length and Desistance......Page 40
Challenge and Response to the Criminal Career Paradigm......Page 41
Theories Influenced by the Criminal Career Paradigm......Page 44
Description of the Sample......Page 54
Measures of Offending......Page 56
Context of the Research:1960s South London......Page 57
CHAPTER FOUR How Do Prevalence and Individual Offending Frequency Vary with Age?......Page 62
Results......Page 64
Continuity in Offending......Page 71
Comment: Do Prevalence and Individual Offending Frequency Track Each Other?......Page 73
Take-Home Messages......Page 74
Unanswered Questions......Page 75
CHAPTER FIVE How Does Onset Age Relate to Individual Offending Frequency?......Page 76
Results......Page 77
Comment: How Does Onset Age Relate to Individual Offending Frequency?......Page 87
Unanswered Question......Page 89
CHAPTER SIX How Does Specialization / Versatility Vary with Age?......Page 90
Data Analysis Approach......Page 91
Results......Page 93
Comment: Is There Specialization in Violence?......Page 96
Unanswered Questions......Page 97
CHAPTER SEVEN Comparing the Validity of Prospective, Retrospective, and Official Onset for Different Offending Categories......Page 98
Measures......Page 101
Comparison of Prospective (Proximate) and Retrospective (Distant) Ages of Onset......Page 102
Comparison of Prospective and Official Ages of Onset......Page 105
Comment: Prospective, Retrospective, and Official Onset for Different Conviction Types......Page 108
Take-Home Messages......Page 111
Unanswered Questions......Page 112
8 What Is the Role of Co-offenders, and How Does It Vary with Age?......Page 113
Methods......Page 114
Results......Page 115
Comment: Is There Co-offending in the CSDD, and How Does Co-offending Vary with Age?......Page 136
Take-Home Messages......Page 137
Unanswered Questions......Page 138
CHAPTER NINE Are Chronic Offenders Serious Offenders, and Does This Relationship Vary with Age?......Page 139
Results......Page 140
Comparing Offense Skewness......Page 142
A Different Approach to Identifying Chronic Offenders......Page 148
Comment: Chronicity, Violence, Recidivism, and Age......Page 152
Unanswered Questions......Page 154
CHAPTER NINE Trajectories of Offending......Page 155
Data Analysis......Page 157
Results......Page 158
Offense Trajectories......Page 159
Model Estimates and Posterior Probability Assignments......Page 165
Summary Statistics......Page 166
Offending Classes and Criminal Career Dimensions......Page 169
Age 33 to Age 40: A Comment......Page 173
Comment: What Are the Trajectories of Offending to Emerge from the CSDD?......Page 175
How Do the Groups Vary According to Risk Factors Measured at Ages 8–10?......Page 176
Unanswered Questions......Page 190
CHAPTER ELEVEN Developing Estimates of Duration and Residual Career Length......Page 191
Measures......Page 194
Results: Career Length Duration......Page 195
Comment: What is the Average Career Length, and How Does It Relate to Other Criminal Career Parameters?......Page 201
Results: Residual Career Length......Page 204
Can Risk Scores Predict RCL and RNO?......Page 209
Comment: What Do We Learn from Residual Career Lengths?......Page 211
Unanswered Questions......Page 213
CHAPTER TWELVE A Summary and an Agenda for Future Research......Page 215
Summary of Main Findings......Page 216
Implications for Theory and Policy......Page 221
Limitations......Page 224
Research Priority 1: Intermittency......Page 225
Research Priority 2: Desistance......Page 226
Research Priority 3: Health......Page 227
Research Priority 4: Qualitative Narratives......Page 228
Research Priority 5: Conditional Relationships: Race, Gender, and Neighborhoods......Page 229
The Next 40 Years of the CSDD......Page 230
References......Page 234
Index......Page 253
