Identifying and predicting criminal career profiles from adolescence to age 39

Few longitudinal studies are capable of identifying criminal career profiles using both self-report and official court data beyond the 30s. The current study aims to identify criminal career profiles across three developmental periods using self-report data, validate these profiles with official court records and determine early childhood predictors. Data came from the Seattle Social Development Project (n = 808). Latent Class Analysis was used to examine criminal careers from self-reported data during adolescence (aged 14-18), early adulthood (aged 21-27) and middle adulthood (aged 30-39). Official court records were used to validate the classes. Childhood risk and promotive factors measured at ages 11-12 were used to predict classes. Findings revealed four career classes: non-offending (35.6%), adolescence-limited (33.2%), adult desister (18.3%) and life-course/persistent (12.9%). Official court records are consistent with the description of the classes. Early life school and family environments as well as having antisocial beliefs and friends differentiate membership across the classes. The results of this study, with a gender-balanced and racially diverse sample, bolster the current criminal career knowledge by examining multiple developmental periods into the 30s using both self-report and official court data.

Who will kill again? The forensic value of 1st degree murder convictions

Studies of homicide offenders that engage in repeat, non-serial homicide offending are scarce and most studies lack comprehensive criminal career data that include convictions for 1st degree murder. Drawing on archival data on 682 male convicted felons from the Florida Department of Corrections, the current study examined the prognostic association between prior 1st degree murder convictions and various specifications of subsequent homicide offending. Negative binomial and logistic regression models found that prior 1st degree murder convictions were significantly associated with current/instant homicide offending and multiple homicide offending despite controls for five forms of serious felony violence, age, and race. Suggestions for future research are proffered regarding the forensic and criminological value of 1st degree murder convictions.

Developmental trajectories of offenders convicted of fraud: A follow-up to age 50 in a Dutch conviction cohort

This study describes the criminal careers of offenders convicted of fraud, distinguishing different career dimensions such as intermittency, versatility and specialization. Results indicate that most fraud offenders are versatile in the sense that they also have significant criminal records for other serious offending (that is, not fraud). At the same time they are also specialized in fraud. When we examine developmental trajectories of serious offending and next explore patterns of fraud for the groups identified, we find that offenders in our sample represent a heterogeneous group and that the classic divide between typical financial (for example, white-collar) offenders and common criminals does not apply to the majority of our sample.