Criminal, penal and life histories of chronic offenders: risk and protective factors and early identification

Abstract

The Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development is a prospective longitudinal survey of 411 London males from 8 to 32 years. Up to age 32, just 24 — termed ‘chronic offenders’ in this paper — committed half of all the recorded offences. This paper documents their criminal and penal histories. Nearly all were sent to a penal institution at some stage. When asked about the effects of penal treatment, most thought that it had had no effect or that it had made them less likely to reoffend. The chronic offenders differed markedly from the non‐chronic offenders and from non‐offenders in childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Generally, chronic offenders were leading more dysfunctional lives in adulthood. The most important childhood risk factors for chronic offending were troublesomeness, daring, a delinquent sibling and a convicted parent. Most of the chronics might have been predicted at age 10 on the basis of troublesome behaviour or social background features. Vulnerable males who did not become convicted offenders tended to be socially isolated and to be living relatively unsuccessful lives at age 32. Hence ameliorative treatment might be justified for almost all high‐risk boys identifiable at age 10.

Family factors in the intergenerational transmission of offending

“…Furthermore, having a convicted parent by the 10th birthday predicted criminal and antisocial outcomes independently of all other variables. In logistic regression analyses, a convicted parent was the second-best predictor of convictions up to age 32 (Farrington, 1993), and it was an important independent predictor of chronic offenders up to age 32 (Farrington and West, 1993).…”

Analyzing Criminal Trajectory Profiles: Bridging Multilevel and Group-based Approaches Using Growth Mixture Modeling

“…The increasing availability of individual-level longitudinal data in criminology (e.g., Elliot 1985;Tracy et al 1990;Farrington and West 1993;Nieuwbeerta and Blokland 2003) has led to a larger number of empirical papers in recent years with individual ''criminal careers'' as the outcome of interest. Those articles address questions regarding patterns of criminal offending across the (full or partial) age range of the life course (e.g., Piquero and Buka 2002;Laub and Sampson 2003), the existence of typical offender trajectories (e.g., Nagin et al 1995;D'Unger et al 1998), possible correlates of or explanations for different offender trajectories (e.g., Blokland et al 2005), and the prediction of future offending from juvenile offender trajectories in combination with certain covariates (Piquero and Buka 2002).…”

A Review of Legislation and Bylaws Relevant to Bullying

“…The intention is to prevent individuals from continuing to engage in bullying and escalating in their behaviours (e.g., assault, gang violence, and harassment) by making bullying a criminal offence. This is significant because bullying has been shown in the research to be a risk factor for these more severe behaviours (Farrington & West, 1993;Olweus, 1991). In addition, supporters of the bylaw believe that the ability to fine individuals who threaten or intimidate others will deter such individuals from such behaviour (Toronto Star, 2003).…”