NCJ Number
195209
Journal
American Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 26 Issue: 1 Dated: Fall 2001 Pages: 77-92
Date Published
2001
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This article introduces a scale of career/serious criminality informed by Moffitt’s theory of the life-course persistent offender.
Abstract
The accurate identification of who will become a habitual offender is one of the primary scientific goals of criminology. Moffitt’s developmental taxonomy represents a major theoretical advance in criminal career research. It suggests that there are two distinct types of criminal offenders: the adolescence-limited offender and the life-course persistent offender. The adolescence-limited offender is common and results from a difficult transition from adolescence to adulthood. The life-course persistent offender is rare and engages in antisocial behavior of one sort or another at every life stage. This study employs a postdiction design, which allows the researcher to assess offending careers retroactively to determine whether baseline variables could have postdicted certain criminal outcomes. A seven-item additive scale was produced. These items are sex, age of onset at first arrest, juvenile predatory arrest, juvenile serious property arrest, juvenile felony conviction, juvenile violation of non-incarceration sentence, and juvenile commitment to prison. Offenders scoring zero or one occupy the low-rate category. Scores of two or three reflect medium-rate participants and values of four through seven delineate high-rate offenders. The data came from a simple random sample of 500 adults arrested and detained at a large urban jail in the western United States. Results showed that the seven items appeared to be a reliable indicator of the life-course persistent offender. The current scale, in conjunction with Moffitt’s theory, suggests that only four percent of offenders will be high-rate. However, the instrument is unable to determine which four- percent. More research is needed to correctly identify the elusive pathological criminals. 2 tables, 66 references