An important role is played by secondary organized motives and cognitive patterns. Secondary organized motives develop through the process of social learning and experiences. Cognitive patterns consist of specific forms of perception, reception, and processing of information about the environment and ourselves from the external world. The author has tested the theses of Walter's theory of criminal lifestyle by conducting interview with recidivist prisoners in one of the Slovene correctional institutions. After analyzing these interviews, the author concluded that secondary organized motives underlying prisoners' behaviors are anger/rebellion; power/control; excitement/pleasure; greed; and cognition patterns of mollification, "cutoff," entitlement, power orientation, sentimentality, superoptimism, cognitive indolence, and discontinuity. 2 tables and 16 references