NCJ Number
212814
Journal
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency Volume: 43 Issue: 1 Dated: February 2006 Pages: 89-113
Date Published
February 2006
Length
25 pages
Annotation
This study used conviction data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD) to examine residual criminal career length (RCL) and residual number of offenses (RNO), that is, the remaining time and number of offenses in criminal careers, for a sample of British men and their fathers.
Abstract
The findings showed the difficulties in predicting criminal-career outcomes based on official records, and a general decline in RCL and RNO with age. Although RCL decreased with each successive conviction for both sons and fathers, RNO did not decline with the number of convictions for the fathers. Age at the onset of criminal behavior predicted RCL and RNO for the sons, but less so for fathers. The type of offense and the number of co-offenders did not predict RCL or RNO. Risk scores showed that the predictive power of these variables for RCL and RNO was statistically significant but not high. The CSDD was a prospective longitudinal survey of 411 mainly White men from a working-class area of London. They were first contacted in 1961 to 1962 when they were 8 to 9 years old. They were interviewed on eight subsequent occasions. Official records of convictions were obtained for the period between ages 10 and 40 for 21 offense types. The data analysis focused on the number of years remaining in the criminal career up to the last recorded conviction and the number of offenses that remained in the criminal career. Conviction reports were available for the men's fathers up to age 70 for those who had not died; 109 fathers were convicted of 315 offenses. Distributions of RCL and RNO were calculated according to six criteria: age at offense, conviction number, time since the last conviction, age of onset, offense type, and number of co-offenders. 6 figures, 7 tables, 8 notes, and 42 references