Week #3: Reading - Piquero Flashcards
Define a Criminal Career
the “characterization of the longitudinal sequence of crimes committed by an individual offender”
What are two components of crime rates in the Criminal career approach?
participation
- distinction between those who commit crime and don’t
frequency (lambda)
- the rate of offending among active offenders
How is participation measured?
- the fraction of a population ever committing at least one crime before some age or currently active during some particular observation period.
What is the role of duration in the criminal career paradigm?
One aspect of the criminal career paradigm that has received a great deal of research attention is initiation, or the onset of antisocial and criminal activity
Difficulty involved in determining the true end of an individual’s criminal career
Most criminal careers are relatively short, averaging about five years for offenders who are active in Index offenses as young adults.
Residual careers, or the length of time still remaining in careers, increase to an expected ten years for Index offenders still active in their thirties
Explain crime type and seriousness in the CCP?
Offenders tend to engage in a diversity of crime types, with a somewhat greater tendency to repeat the same crime or to repeat within the group of property crimes or the group of violent crimes.
In addition, there appeared to be some evidence of increasing seriousness, specialization, and escalation during criminal careers.
Explain Co-offending patterns in the CCP?
Another important criminal career feature is whether a person commits an offence alone or with others
The incidence of co- offending is greatest for burglary and robbery and that juvenile of- fenders primarily commit their crimes with others, whereas adult offenders primarily commit their crimes alone
What are policy issues in the CCP?
the ability to classify individual offenders in terms of their projected criminal activity,
the quality of the classification rules,
the legitimacy of basing punishment of an individual on the possibility of future crimes rather than only on the crimes already committed
What are CCP crime control strategies?
The criminal career paradigm suggests three general orientations for crime control strategies: prevention, career modification, and incapacitation.
Prevention strategies, including general deterrence, are intended to reduce the number of non-offenders who become offenders.
Career modification strategies, including individual deterrence and rehabilitation, are focused on persons already known to be criminals and seek to reduce the frequency or seriousness of their crimes.
In addition, these strategies encourage the termination of ongoing criminal careers through mechanisms such as job training and drug treatment.
Incapacitative strategies focus on the crimes reduced as a result of removing offenders from society during their criminal careers.
What is the relationship to laws and the CCP?
Both collective and selective incapacitation policies are directly influenced by laws and policies that govern criminal justice decisions regarding the punishment of offenders.
For example, habitual offender statutes give special options to prosecutors for dealing with repeat of- fenders.
- Three strikes laws, mandatory minimum, truth in sentencing (have to serve portion of sentence, no parole alternative
What is the most important criminal career dimension?
- individual frequency
- research should focus especially on the rate of lambda over time as offenders age, variation in lambda with age for active offenders, the factors associated with intermittent spurts of high-rate and low-rate offending, and differences in lambda by crime type.
