Essays on patterns and explanations of criminal careers consider crime and age, as well as characteristics of criminal careers. Essays on crime and age include a description of the age distribution of illegal interpersonal violence and property acquisition in modern North America and Europe; a comparison of crime and age in Israel, the United States, and Western Europe; and the relationship between age and individual crime rates in the evolution of criminal careers. Essays on the patterns of criminal careers address such topics as whether criminal careers have a similar trajectory, whether there are different types of careers, whether they have identifiable starts and conclusions, whether there is a typical escalation in crime severity over time, and whether career criminals tend to specialize in particular crime types. The final group of readings in Volume I documents a set of controversies regarding the criminal career paradigm in criminological research. In this context, a paradigm is a conceptual framework built around certain concepts, specifying a research agenda and establishing criteria for assessing the value and validity of empirical research. In Volume II, 16 essays focus on offense-specific studies of criminal careers. The offenses encompass property offenses, male prostitution, drug trafficking and use, female street offenders, arson, and white-collar crime. Ten essays address the causes, correlates, and contingencies of criminal careers. Chapter references and a name index