Violence in criminal careers: A review of the literature from a developmental life-course perspective

No Thumbnail Available
File version
Author(s)
Piquero, Alex R
Jennings, Wesley G
Barnes, JC
Griffith University Author(s)
Primary Supervisor
Other Supervisors
Editor(s)
Date
2012
Size
File type(s)
Location
License
Abstract

The criminal career paradigm focuses on the prevalence and frequency of crime along with an emphasis on offense specialization, age of onset and desistance, offense seriousness, and career length. Coinciding with the criminal career framework, developmental/life-course criminology offers more complex theoretical explanations for crime which highlight the importance of age-graded developmental risk factors that affect offending over the course of a criminal career. This review provides a systematic examination of the role of violence in criminal career and developmental/life-course research with a specific focus on its prevalence and frequency and its share of the offense repertoire. The results show that the incidence of violence is rare in one's criminal career except for a small group of chronic offenders who are responsible for a majority of the violent offenses. Regarding specialization, evidence suggests that offenders are spectacularly non-specialized and violent offenders can primarily be characterized as frequent offenders who offend more often and thereby have a higher probability of committing a violent offense in their criminal career. Conclusions and directions for future research are discussed.

Journal Title

Aggression and Violent Behavior

Conference Title
Book Title
Edition
Volume

17

Issue

3

Thesis Type
Degree Program
School
Publisher link
Patent number
Funder(s)
Grant identifier(s)
Rights Statement
Rights Statement
Item Access Status
Note
Access the data
Related item(s)
Subject

Criminology

Causes and prevention of crime

Persistent link to this record
Citation
Collections