Key Issues in Criminal Career Research Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Charles F. Wellford
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Overview of Criminal Careers
- 3 Overview of CSDD Data
- 4 How Do Prevalence and Individual Offending Frequency Vary with Age?
- 5 How Does Onset Age Relate to Individual Offending Frequency?
- 6 How Does Specialization/Versatility Vary with Age?
- 7 Comparing the Validity of Prospective, Retrospective, and Official Onset for Different Offending Categories
- 8 What Is the Role of Co-offenders, and How Does It Vary with Age?
- 9 Are Chronic Offenders Serious Offenders, and Does This Relationship Vary with Age?
- 10 Trajectories of Offending
- 11 Developing Estimates of Duration and Residual Career Length
- 12 A Summary and an Agenda for Future Research
- References
- Index
- Titles in the series
1 - Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Charles F. Wellford
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Overview of Criminal Careers
- 3 Overview of CSDD Data
- 4 How Do Prevalence and Individual Offending Frequency Vary with Age?
- 5 How Does Onset Age Relate to Individual Offending Frequency?
- 6 How Does Specialization/Versatility Vary with Age?
- 7 Comparing the Validity of Prospective, Retrospective, and Official Onset for Different Offending Categories
- 8 What Is the Role of Co-offenders, and How Does It Vary with Age?
- 9 Are Chronic Offenders Serious Offenders, and Does This Relationship Vary with Age?
- 10 Trajectories of Offending
- 11 Developing Estimates of Duration and Residual Career Length
- 12 A Summary and an Agenda for Future Research
- References
- Index
- Titles in the series
Summary
“Who are YOU?” said the Caterpillar. This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, “I – I hardly know, sir, just at present – at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.” “What do you mean by that?” said the Caterpillar sternly. “Explain yourself!” “I can't explain MYSELF, I'm afraid, sir,” said Alice, “because I'm not myself, you see.” “I don't see,” said the Caterpillar. “I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly,” Alice replied very politely, “for I can't understand it myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.”
(From Alice in Wonderland, Chapter 5, “Advice from a Caterpillar”).Criminologists have long been interested in the longitudinal patterning of criminal activity over the life-course, or how and why criminal behavior begins, continues, and ends. Prominent qualitative and quantitative studies have sought to describe individual initiation, continuation, and cessation of criminal offending. For example, Quetelet's (1831) Research on the Propensity for Crime at Different Ages was one of the first large-scale studies to provide a description of the aggregate relationship between age and crime. Shaw's (1928) The Jack-Roller told the captivating story of Stanley's delinquency in Chicago at the turn of the century.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Key Issues in Criminal Career ResearchNew Analyses of the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development, pp. 1 - 6Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007