Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice

2014 Edition
| Editors: Gerben Bruinsma, David Weisburd

Criminal Careers and Public Policy Responses

Reference work entry
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5690-2_90
How to cite

Overview

The past three decades of research and theorizing in Criminology has provided an opportunity to learn and further understand the dimensions of criminal careers as well as offending behavior across the life course. First articulated by Alfred Blumstein and colleagues in 1986, the criminal career approach to understanding patterns of offending behavior has provided a wealth of information that has fostered greater understanding of criminal behavior, greater knowledge to foster theoretical development, and realignment as well as important implications for the development of age-graded policy responses to crime and criminal behavior.

While the strongest emphasis of the criminal career approach has been on generating a wealth of information about criminal careers, including factors related to their initiation, factors related to components of active offending activity, as well as factors related to career desistance or termination, the approach has important implications for...

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Recommended Reading and References

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Arts, Education, and LawGriffith UniversityGriffithAustralia