By Miguel Basto-Pereira, David P. Farrington, Laura Maciel

This work aims to investigate the role of sequences of risk factors from childhood to young adulthood in predicting subsequent criminal convictions. This study uses the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD) dataset, a prospective longitudinal research study that followed 411 males from South London from the age of 8 to 61 years. Temporal sequences of risk factors at ages 8–10, 12–14, and 16–18 were analyzed as predictors of subsequent criminal convictions up to the age of 61. Risk factors related to poverty, parenting problems, and children’s risk-taking predisposition at ages 8–10 emerged as prevalent starting points for the most highly predictive developmental sequences leading to convictions. The risk of a criminal conviction significantly increased if these risk factors were followed by low IQ scores or association with delinquent friends at ages 12–14, and by school and professional problems or drug addiction during late adolescence (ages 16–18). At each developmental stage, specific risk factors intricately combine to form chains of risk during development, subsequently predicting criminal convictions. A trajectory-of-risk-need-responsivity approach that identifies and breaks chains of risk factors that generate and enhance favorable conditions for criminal convictions is discussed.

Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology (2024) 10:242–264

MAY CONTAIN MARKUP

By Pat O'Malley

Over recent years, the governance of crime - from policing and crime prevention to sentencing and prison organization - has moved away from a focus on reforming offenders toward preventing crime and managing behaviour using predictive and distributional (such as risk) techniques.

Crime and Risk presents an engaging discussion of risk strategies and risk-taking in the domain of crime and criminal justice. It outlines the broad theoretical issues and political approaches involved, relating risk in contemporary crime governance to risk in criminal activity. Taking a broad and discursive approach, it covers:

- Risk-taking and contemporary culture

- The excitement associated with risk-taking and the impact of criminal activity

- The application of risk-oriented developments in crime prevention and control

- The use of genetic and related biotechnologies to assess and react to perceived threats

- The conceptualization of risk in relation to race and gender

- The influence of excitement upon criminal activity

- Evidence and accountability.

SAGE Publications, May 5, 2010, 112 pages

By Robert J. Sampson and L. Ash Smith

The social transformations of crime and punishment in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries challenge traditional conceptions of criminal propensity and character. A life-course framework on cohort differences in growing up during these times of social change highlights large-scale inequalities in life experiences. Entire cohorts of children have come of age in such different historical contexts that typical markers of a crime-prone character, such as being a chronic offender or having an arrest record, are as much a function of societal change as of an individual’s early life propensities or background characteristics, including classic risk factors emphasized in criminology. When we are thus matters as much as, and perhaps more than, who we are—despite law, practice, and theory privileging the latter. Because crime over the life course is shaped by changing socio-historical conditions, it must be studied as such. Multi-cohort studies provide a key strategy for doing so, inspiring a reconsideration of criminal propensity and policies premised on unchanging predictors of future criminality. Developmental and life-course criminology should elevate the study of cohort differences in social change and, ultimately, societal character.

Crime and Justice, Volume 50, 2021