Skills for Criminal Achievement among Active Offenders

• In Event: Understanding Crime and Desistance through Life Narratives and Life History Calendars

Abstract

a) Objective
The primary objective of this research is to extend the existing criminal career paradigm by incorporating the aspect of criminal achievement, alongside proposing an analytical framework aimed at elucidating the determinants of success within criminal endeavors. The overarching goal is to gain deeper insights into the notion of criminal skills. More precisely, the aim is to identify the factors influencing criminal achievement and to examine the impact of various static and dynamic characteristics on criminal achievement.

b) Data/Methods
The present study draws upon data obtained through a face-to-face administration of a structured questionnaire completed by over 300 participants who had been involved in lucrative criminal activities and who had never been incarcerated. The questionnaire aims to reconstruct their criminal trajectory, mainly using the life history calendar method.

c) Results
The results allow us to identify criminal competencies, a concept central to success in criminal circles but relatively absent from the research literature, which promotes criminal achievement.

d) Conclusions
The study of criminal success is therefore crucial to understanding criminal careers, insofar as criminal success could have a structuring effect on criminal activity in individual pathways, and on the risks to which offenders are prepared to expose themselves.

Author

• Frédéric Ouellet, Université de Montréal