Criminal Careers Research Articles

THE PHENOMENON OF CRIMINAL CAREERS IN A VICIOUS CIRCLE OF CRIME

There are different definitions of criminal careers, but the knowledge about this phenomenon needs to be constantly improved. Criminal careers can be studied from the aspect of perpetrators, from the aspect of committed crimes, depending on their duration, characteristics, dimensions and intensity. Approaches, knowledge and experiences in the development of criminological theory and practice, which focus on the concept of criminal careers and patterns of socially unacceptable behavior, also differ in different parts of the world. Research on criminal patterns indicates the increasing complexity of the acts that are committed, as well as the perpetrators whose personalities represent the intertwining and mutual influence of numerous internal and external factors that influence their behavior and the decisions they make. The quality of the criminal justice system is directly correlated with research and knowledge in the field of criminal careers. The duration of criminal careers is not always possible to determine, and often depends on the type of crimes committed, as well as on personal motives that primarily led to criminal behavior. Research has shown that the greatest influence on the further course and termination of criminal careers have lifestyles and changes in perceptions of one’s own personality.

INDIVIDUAL RISK FACTORS AMONG YOUTH OFFENDERS PRIOR AND DURING INCARCERATION: MACEDONIAN CASE

Much research has been done related to the influence of the prison environment on the convicted persons, the role and significance of the rehabilitation treatment, the characteristics of the inmates and their connection with the processes of adaptation and the negative consequences of the pains of imprisonment. This research is based on several theories within criminology and penology and one of them being the importation model. This model highlights the importance of the characteristics of inmates, their ethnicity, individual risk factors, previous socialization, internal value system, delinquent friends, criminal history, education and the influence of these characteristics on adaptation processes in prison facilities. The importation theory proposes that the previous life, criminal career and other risk factors shape the way in which young inmates adapt and behave in the institution. This paper will look at the importation theory by examining certain individual personal and family risk factors of young inmates and the impact of these factors prior to and during incarceration in an educational correctional facility. The analysis is based on qualitative data collected by conducting in depth interviews with young inmates to capture their attitudes and experiences in relation to these factors. The survey presumes that these risk factors that contributed to crimes outside are also risk factors that influence institutional adjustments and behaviour of the inmates.

Back to the Past: Evolution of Kidnapping and Hostage Taking in the Niger Delta, Nigeria

Kidnapping is now a disturbing security problem in Nigeria. Using ideas pieced together from newspapers, magazines and interviews this paper traces the origin of the problem to the crisis in the oil-rich Niger Delta region in the 1990s. The paper discusses how the Niger Delta militants used it as a pressure tactic for getting the government to address the grievances of oil pollution in their communities. The victims, at the initial stage, were expatriate oil workers. They were taken and political demands made for their release. In the second stage of the problem’s evolution, the militants collected ransoms for releasing their captives and the money used it to finance their insurgency against the Nigerian state. The third stage of the evolution was when it was hijacked by some criminal elements that turned it to a form of extortionate terrorism now difficult to manage. At this stage, the oil workers, members of their families, rich community members and politicians were kidnapped and ransoms taken before releasing them. The problem soon extended to the other parts of the country from the Niger Delta because of the poor way this form of violent extremism was managed by the Nigerian state. Not even the amnesty granted the Niger Delta militants in 2009 and in several other parts of Nigeria (where kidnapping now takes place) has been good enough to stop what now appears to be career criminality.

Childhood Risk Factors for Self-Reported Versus Official Life-Course-Persistent, Adolescence-Limited, and Late-Onset Offending

There has been no prior research comparing risk factors for categories of convicted individuals (C-types: life-course-persistent; adolescence-limited; late-onset) compared with the corresponding categories of individuals who self-reported offending (SR-types). This article examines the extent to which these convicted and self-reported categories of individuals overlap, and explores childhood risk factors that predict categories of C-types and SR-types. Criminal career information about individuals involved in the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD) is used; 25 childhood factors were analyzed. C-types and SR-types were more problematic than both official and SR nonoffenders. Life-course persisters, adolescence-limited offenders, and nonoffenders overlapped in official records and self-reports, but late-onset offenders did not. C-types were significantly similar to SR-types in childhood risk factors; only a few differences were found. The differences between C-types and SR-types might be better conceptualized as quantitative rather than qualitative. Implications for prevention and intervention are discussed.

Law Incentives for Juvenile Recruiting by Drug Trafficking Gangs: Empirical Evidence From Rio de Janeiro

We evaluate the deterrence effects of the age of criminal responsibility on total drug trafficking and homicide crimes per age, based on a quasi-experiment generated by differences in punishment severity for these crimes prescribed by the Statute of the Child and Adolescent and by the Penal Code in Brazil. To this end, information from arrests conducted by the civil and military police of the state of Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and 2017 is used to estimate the local effects of treatment through a Regression Discontinuity Design. Instead of using recidivism data and/or grouping crimes with distinct punishment severity, we use as outcome variable the total number of arrests (crimes) per age for drug trafficking and homicides, which are the most common crimes related to organized crime in Rio de Janeiro. The results indicate that the increase in punishment severity generated by the Penal Code can reduce the number of drug trafficking-related crimes by 9% and homicides by 37%. Through a simple cost-benefit analysis, we suggest that increasing the punishment severity for minors who commit homicide could reduce juvenile’s engagement in a criminal career associated with gangs and generate gains in social well-being.

Possible Reliance: Protecting Legally Innocent Johnson Claimants

The writ of habeas corpus presents the last chance for innocent defendants to obtain relief from invalid convictions and sentences. The writ constitutes a limited exception to the finality of judgments. Given the role finality plays in conserving judicial resources and deterring criminal conduct, exceptions created by habeas must be principally circumscribed. Since the Supreme Court’s invalidation of the Armed Career Criminal Act’s residual clause in Johnson v. United States, the federal courts of appeals have attempted to develop a test that protects the writ from abuse by Johnson claimants. This Note first contributes a new understanding of the resulting circuit split. Currently, circuits construe the split to be about a Johnson petitioner’s burden of proof at the jurisdictional stage. However, circuits actually disagree on the standard a petitioner must meet to establish the court’s subject-matter jurisdiction. This Note identifies two standards. The sole-reliance standard requires petitioners to show that the sentencing court relied solely on the residual clause, while the possible-reliance standard requires petitioners to show that the court may have relied on the residual clause. Both standards must be shown by a preponderance of the evidence. This Note then deploys this reconceptualization of the circuit split to advance new arguments in favor of imposing the possible-reliance standard at the jurisdictional stage. The possible-reliance standard protects the innocent, preserves the finality of judgments, and conforms with Supreme Court habeas jurisprudence and congressional intent expressed in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.

A Study on the Factors Affecting the criminal career of Juvenile Inmates - focusing on psychological characteristics -

A Study on the Factors Affecting the criminal career of Juvenile Inmates - focusing on psychological characteristics -

Fledgling psychopaths at midlife: Forensic features, criminal careers, and coextensive psychopathology

Lynam's fledgling psychopathy hypothesis advanced that youth who manifest Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), Conduct Disorder (CD), and ADHD display many behaviors that are consistent with psychopathy seen among adults, but research support for it is equivocal. We know littleabout the developmental course of fledgling psychopathy into adulthood and even less is known about its comorbidity at midlife. Drawing on data from a near population of federal correctional clients in the Midwestern United States, the current study employed a retrospective design to compare those who had lifetime diagnoses for ODD, CD, and ADHD to other correctional clients. Fledgling psychopathy was significantly correlated with multiple substance use disorders, forensic features indicative of a criminal lifestyle (e.g., gang activity, gunshot and stab wounds), and diverse forms of mental illness and personality disorders. Fledgling psychopaths had significantly earlier starting, extensive, and more violent criminal careers than other clients, and fledgling psychopathy was associated more career arrest charges and with 544% increased odds of being in the 90th percentile for career arrest charges. These findings are consistent with fledgling psychopathy and its traversing association with coextensive psychopathology and behavioral impairment at midlife.

Differentiating Individuals Convicted of Sexual Offenses: A Two-Country Latent Class Analysis.

Sexual offenses are often part of a larger criminal career also encompassing nonsexual crimes. However, most sexual offending typologies focus on an individual's most recent sexual offense. We compare data from Belgian and Dutch national conviction cohorts and use latent class analysis to distinguish groups of individuals based on their history of sexual and nonsexual offenses, considering continuity and variety. The resulting classification is compared between individuals convicted of sexual offenses and individuals convicted of nonsexual offenses. Results show that four latent classes can be distinguished based on continuity and variety in criminal histories of individuals convicted of sexual offenses, and that some of these classes resemble those distinguished among individuals convicted of nonsexual offenses. We find limited overlap between these latent classes and typologies based solely on the index offense. Results show marked similarities across countries. These results challenge theories of sexual offending to incorporate patterns of nonsexual offending.

Participation and Frequency in Criminal Convictions across 25 Successive Birth Cohorts: Collectivity, Polarization, or Convergence?

Against the backdrop of an overall declining crime trend our overarching objective is to explore whether this development has concealed any degree of divergence between participation and frequency in crime. We employ Swedish longitudinal data comprising 25 complete birth cohorts born between 1960 and 1984 and followed to age 30 using convictions data. The results show a complex pattern of change, by which the crime rate partly conceals divergent processes between participation and frequency. In particular, among the males we find a consistent decrease in the size of the convicted population, whereas the frequency of crimes among convicted offenders has increased across cohorts born during the early 1970s and later. We discuss the results against both behavioral and reactional mechanisms and conclude that future crime trends research should consider a broad range of criminal career parameters which cannot be discerned using aggregate crime data.

Sexual Homicide: a Criminological Perspective.

This review presents recent findings of research focusing on sexual homicide. Firstly, we examine international comparative studies of victim, offender, and crime characteristics. Secondly, we review an important body of literature that compares developmental and psychological as well as the decision-making process of sexual murderers with other violent offenders. Thirdly, recent and major findings on links between sexual homicide and psychopathy as well as sadism are presented. Fourthly, findings on spatial behavior and factors that can explain it are discussed. Finally, the last section reviews characteristics of sexual homicide involving children and elderly victims. International comparisons suggest that sexual homicide presents more similarities than differences across countries implying that most of knowledge can be generalized and applied to other countries. Comparisons with other types of violent offenders highlight that sexual murderers are a specific type of offenders with particular characteristics (criminal careers, developmental factors, personality disorders, lifestyle characteristics) and crime commission process (modus operandi, spatial behavior). As to the etiological factors of sexual homicide, psychopathy and sadism are important characteristics of sexual murderers leading their criminal life as well as their everyday life. Finally, studies focusing on specific types of vulnerable victims showed a high level of heterogeneity within the population of sexual murderers. Sexual murderers are specific offenders with peculiar characteristics and further research should develop proper knowledge on it. Creation of new international databases allows research to confirm and increase knowledge by considering sexual homicides as a complex heterogenous crime.

On the Invention of Identity Politics: The Buraku Outcastes in Japan

AbstractUsing 14 national censuses and a wide variety of first-hand accounts, I trace the creation of a largely fictive identity for Japan’s putative outcastes and the transformation of their nominal human rights organization into (on several crucial dimensions) a heavily criminal extortion machine. Scholars have long described the outcastes – the “burakumin” – as descended from a pre-modern leather-workers’ guild. Their members suffer discrimination because their ancestors handled carcasses, and ran afoul of a traditional Japanese obsession with ritual purity.In fact, most burakumin are descended not from leather-workers, but from poor farmers with distinctively dysfunctional norms. Others may or may not have shunned them out of concern for purity, but they certainly would have shunned many of them for their involvement in crime and their disintegrating family structures.The modern transformation of the buraku began in 1922, when self-described Bolsheviks lauched a buraku “liberation” organization. To fit the group within Marxist historical schema, they invented for it the fictive identity as a leather-workers’ guild that continues to this day. Bitter identity politics followed. Within a few years, criminal entrepreneurs hijacked the new organization, and pioneered a shakedown strategy that coupled violent accusations of bias with demands for massive amounts of money. Selective out-migration and spiraling levels of public subsidies ensued. The logic follows straightforwardly from the economic logic outlined by Becker and Hirschman: given ever-larger amounts of (expropriable) subsidies, burakumin with the lowest opportunity costs faced ever-larger incentives to stay in the buraku and invest in criminal careers; given the virulent public hostility that this strategy generated, those burakumin with the highest legitimate career options abandoned the community and merged into the general public instead.

How Youth Are Defined

This project examines alternative measures to charging at-risk youth and the importance of transitional programs due to the ineffectiveness of punitive approaches. Punitive approaches are known for worsening issues with delinquent youth, such as recidivism. Youth are optimal to examine when tackling socioeconomic issues such as these because they are young enough that intervention can be done to set them on the right path. This intervention can prevent harms that would otherwise define them for the rest of their lives. There are shortcomings in the way society handles delinquent youth, and many are trapped in their criminal label. Because of this, they often continue to offend and ‘rebel’ against the system. Alternative measures to charging youth and transitional programs could make the difference in the way delinquent youth choose to move forward as adult members of society, potentially preventing criminal career formation.

Student Perceptions of Employer Use of Social Media in Selection Decisions: Comparing Criminal Justice Majors to Non-Majors

An increasing concern among university professors and students alike is the image that students project through their social media accounts, particularly when future graduates seek employment in fields such as policing and other criminal justice careers. Despite this common concern, little research has examined the degree to which criminal justice (CJ) students accept employer use of social media searches as a screening tool, or whether there is variation among students based upon characteristics commonly associated with employment discrimination. Drawing upon a survey of over 630 students in criminal justice courses at five public universities, the current inquiry finds that criminal justice majors’ opinions of social media searches do not differ from non-majors taking criminal justice courses. However, African-American, Latino, and students of other races all have less acceptance of the use of employer searches of social media than do white students. Implications for policy and future research are also discussed.

“If Someone Would Have Showed Me”: Identifying Pivotal Points in Pathways to Crime and Incarceration Through Prisoner Self-Narratives

Criminologists and correctional administrators are continuously interested in understanding criminal career trajectories, including desistance, particularly to further develop correctional programming. One program that seeks to promote successful reentry by triggering desistance for youth and adults is the IF Project, founded in 2008 in Washington State. A central component of the IF Project program requires participants to write narratives that ask them to reflect on their journey to crime and to think about what they would have needed to break away from their criminal career trajectory. This research reports on a content analysis of 171 of these writings by adult prisoners in Washington State. Results from the content analysis reveal distinct and overlapping themes for both men and women that highlight the identity change process. Research and policy implications are discussed.

Determinants of Persistence in Collective Violence Offending

ABSTRACT This study explores individual characteristics linked to an increased risk of persistence in collective violence. A sample of collective violence offenders (n = 438) was identified based on individuals’ involvement in a collective violence incident in 2011/2012 or due to them being recorded in a police database of ‘known’ football hooligans. For the current analyses, persistence was defined as recidivism to collective violence assessed over a 4- to 5-year time span. Criminal career data were obtained from the police (register data). Individual characteristics concerned criminal career measures, behavioral indicators of personality traits and childhood problematic behavior. Due to a lack of other available data sources, behavioral indicator data were largely obtained from police and probation service information. The results of this study indicate that offender characteristics can be linked to persistence in collective violence. Results contrast currently dominant theoretical perspectives on the etiology of collective violence. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Life-Course Criminal Trajectories of Mafia Members

Through a novel data set comprising the criminal records of 11,138 convicted mafia offenders, we compute criminal career parameters and trajectories through group-based trajectory modeling. Mafia offenders report prolific and persistent careers (16.1 crimes over 16.5 years on average), with five distinct trajectories (low frequency, high frequency, early starter, moderate persistence, high persistence). While showing some similarities with general offenders, the trajectories of mafia offenders also exhibit significant differences, with several groups offending well into their middle and late adulthood, notwithstanding intense criminal justice sanctions. These patterns suggest that several mafia offenders are life-course persisters and career criminals and that the involvement in the mafias is a negative turning point extending the criminal careers beyond those observed in general offenders.

Life-Course Criminal Trajectories of Mafia Members:

Through a novel data set comprising the criminal records of 11,138 convicted mafia offenders, we compute criminal career parameters and trajectories through group-based trajectory modeling. Mafia o...

Understanding the over-representation of lesbian or bisexual women in the Australian prisoner population

ABSTRACT Australian research shows that sexual and gender minorities are over-represented in the criminal legal system – particularly youth, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and strikingly, women. Almost 37% of incarcerated women in Australia identify as lesbian or bisexual (vs 4% in the community). In this paper, we consider two distinct approaches to conceptualising the sizeable presence and over-representation of lesbian and bisexual women in prisoner populations. Specifically, we examine Deprivation and Queer Criminal Career models – two theories separated by a dichotomy first popularised by Joseph Fishman almost 90 years ago: ‘homosexuals who are formed in prison’ and ‘homosexuals who come to prison’. We contend that although such frameworks have had or hold productive potential, taken in isolation they provide an incomplete understanding of the issue. We conclude by suggesting that the dichotomy that has separated theoretical understandings of this issue is false and propose that future scholarship consider circumventing this dichotomy by exploring the temporal aspects and multiplicity of incarcerated women’s social histories, positions and sexual identities. Such work would contribute to countering one-dimensional narratives circulated by dominant paradigms that have explained or overlooked the over-incarceration of lesbian and bisexual women.

The Impact of Juvenile Sex Offending on the Adult Criminal Career.

Although past studies demonstrated the heterogeneity of the criminal career patterns of juveniles with sexual offenses (JSOs), such studies did not directly assess whether JSOs have different adult offending outcomes compared with juvenile nonsex offenders. Using data on a subsample of males from the Incarcerated Serious and Violent Young Offender Study, JSOs (n = 78), juveniles with violent offenses (JVOs; n = 550), and juveniles with nonviolent offenses (JNVOs; n = 281) were compared across a variety of adult offending outcomes. JSOs were not associated with a specific trajectory of general offending in adulthood, nor were they associated with a range of adult criminal career parameters (e.g., frequency, severity, specialization, and versatility). However, a range of other indicators of juvenile offending were associated with general offending in adulthood. For juvenile males who experience incarceration, many elements of their offending history mattered for adult offending outcomes, but not sexual offending. Policy implications for treatment and management are discussed.