NCJ Number
153872
Journal
Criminology Volume: 33 Issue: 1 Dated: (February 1995) Pages: 111-139
Date Published
1995
Length
29 pages
Annotation
This article builds upon Nagin and Land with an analysis of the distinguishing characteristics of the four types of juvenile criminal careers identified in their study of British males, and it also demonstrates a new approach to identifying characteristics of population groups with distinctive offending trajectories, which is based on nested chi-squared tests.
Abstract
Nagin and Land (1993) identified four distinctive offending trajectories in a sample of 403 British males: a group without any convictions, "adolescence-limited," "high-level chronics," and "low-level chronics." The authors of this article build upon this study with a detailed analysis of the distinguishing individual characteristics, behaviors, and social circumstances from ages 10 through 32 of these four groups. The most salient findings concern the adolescence-limiteds. By age 32, the work records of the adolescence-limiteds were indistinguishable from the never-convicted and substantially better than those of the chronic offenders. The adolescence-limiteds also seem to have established better relationships with their spouses than the chronics. The apparent reformation of the adolescence-limiteds, however, was less than complete. They continued to drink heavily and use drugs, get into fights, and commit criminal acts, according to self-reports. 9 tables, 2 figures, and 33 references