Individual Propensity, Local Circumstances and Short-term Criminal Careers of Adult Sex Offenders

• In Event: Sex Offenders and Criminal Careers

Abstract

There is reason to believe that continuity and change in offending is a false dichotomy and that offending goes through an intricate series of lapses and relapses intertwined with non-offending periods. Criminal career research provides little information about these processes given that criminal careers have been almost exclusively examined within a long-term lens. Short-term criminal career information is especially important in the context of the community supervision of convicted sex offenders. Criminologists have increasingly recognized the importance of both enduring individual differences and opportunity structures (local life circumstances). Similarly, correctional psychology has long recognized the complementary role of static and dynamic risk factors to assess and predict the risk of reoffending in adult offenders. The current study bridges a gap between criminal career research and correctional psychology by examining prospective longitudinal data of a Canadian sample 300 adults convicted of a sex crime and returning to the community following their prison release. Data was collected during the community re-entry and re-assessed throughout the supervision process. The study examines offending behaviors (sex offending as well as other forms of offending) over a three-year period. Adjusting for enduring static risk, between- and within-individual changes in local circumstances are examined through longitudinal modeling

Authors

• Patrick Lussier, Laval University

• Lila Kazemian, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY