NCJ Number
204610
Journal
Criminology Volume: 41 Issue: 3 Dated: August 2003 Pages: 555-592
Editor(s)
Robert J. Bursik Jr.
Date Published
August 2003
Length
38 pages
Annotation
This longitudinal study of crime examined trajectories of offending over the life course of delinquent boys followed from ages 7 to 70.
Abstract
In attacking the age-crime and “offender group” questions, this study reflects data on crime from ages 7 to 70 in what appears to be the longest longitudinal study in criminology. The study analyzes newly collected data on crime during each year from childhood up to age 70 among a group of 500 men with troubled backgrounds. The 500 men were committed to reform schools in Massachusetts during their adolescence in the 1940's and were the subjects of the original study. This study entailed a 35-year follow-up of the same men that included detailed searches of crime and mortality records up to age 70. The study examined within-individual variability over nearly the entire life course. The study begins with a detailed examination of within-individual trajectories of age and crime in the lives of the 500 men from childhood to old age. The study then turned to trajectories of crime in connection with prospectively and theoretically defined taxonomies based on early risk factors. It then defined offending trajectories retrospectively on the basis of patterns of offending observed over the full life course, and then assessed their predictability from childhood and adolescent risk factors. Results indicate that crime declines with age sooner or later for all offender groups, whether identified prospectively according to a multitude of childhood and adolescent risk factors, or retrospectively based on latent-class models of trajectories. It is concluded that desistance processes are at work even among active offenders and predicted life-course persisters, and that childhood prognoses account poorly for long-term trajectories of offending. It remains that there are important differences in adult criminal trajectories that cannot be predicted from childhood. Figures and references