Invited Address: James Joyce, Alice in Wonderland, the Rolling Stones, and Criminal Careers

To be sure, not all researchers see value in the criminal career framework. Although there is much to their critique, Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) take aim at the framework through the lens of the age/crime relationship. These theorists contend that the shape of the aggregate age/crime relationship is pretty much the same for all offenders, in all times and places, and is largely unaffected by life events that occur after childhood. Thus, because involvement in crime is sufficiently stable over the life course, there is little need to collect and analyze longitudinal data, which is necessary under the criminal career framework.

Still, there exist some contentious DLC issues that have been ill-studied and/or have generated discrepant results, and Farrington documents at least eight such issues: (1) while it is clear that the prevalence of offending peaks in the late teenage years, it is less clear how the individual offending frequency (i.e., the frequency of offending among those who offend) varies with age. Some studies suggest that individual offending frequency accelerates to a peak in the late teenage years and decelerates in the 20s, whereas others suggest that individual offending frequency changes much less with age. (2) It is not clear whether the seriousness of offending escalates up to a certain age and then de-escalates, or whether it is much more stable with age. (3) While it is clear that an early onset of offending predicts a long career and many offenses, it is far less clear whether an early onset predicts a high individual offending frequency or a high average seriousness of offending. Nor is it clear whether early onset offenders differ in degree or in kind from later onset offenders or how much there are distinctly different behavioral trajectories. (4) Although chronic offenders commit more offenses than others, it is not clear whether their offenses are more serious on average or whether chronic offenders differ in degree or in kind from non-chronic offenders. (5) While it is clear that certain offenses occur on average before other types and that onset sequences can be identified, it is not clear whether these onset sequences are merely age-appropriate behavioral manifestations of some common underlying theoretical construct or if the onset of one type of behavior facilitates or acts as a stepping stone toward the onset of another. In other words, onset sequences could reflect persistent heterogeneity or state dependence. Similarly, little is known about onset sequences in which childhood antisocial behavior might have some kind of influence on later offending. (6) Although there appears to be some research indicating that offenders are more versatile than specialized, these findings have been produced largely by research using official records through age 18. Very little information has been provided about how specialization/versatility varies with age into adulthood. Even less attention has been paid to the extent to which observations of specialization or versatility vary between official and self-report records. (7) While much attention has been paid to the topic of desistance, little attention has been paid to developing estimates of career length or duration as well as residual career length. Such information bears directly on policy issues regarding appropriate sentence lengths. For example, shorter residual careers would suggest shorter rather than longer sentences. (8) There has been very little research conducted on co-offending generally or on changes in co-offending over the course of a criminal career specifically.

To be sure, Moffitt (1993) does allow for some adolescence-limited to encounter snares that keep them on track for continued crime, and for the possibility that the life-course-persistent pathway may not be entirely static (or driven by persistent heterogeneity).

Of course, targeting individuals who most need specific treatment is ideal, but in the case of nurse home visits and self-control improvement programs, it seems that the negative outcomes are virtually non-existent and the positive outcomes better and very cost-friendly especially when considered over the long-term and throughout all life domains.