Criminal career patterns among a sample of drug-involved, high-risk individuals

• In Event: New Insights from the Roads to Desistance Study: Health, Risk, Religion, Victimization, and Criminal Careers

Abstract

Criminal career scholarship suggests that individuals who persist in crime after young adulthood may be more likely to desist at key ages later in life (Blumstein & Cohen, 1987). We explore age-crime curves using individuals in the Roads to Desistance study, which initially sampled high-risk prisoners in Delaware in the 1990s with a history of serious drug addiction. We use group-based trajectory modeling to explore varying age-crime curves using official arrest records through 2008. Next, we descriptively examine factors that differentiate the groups, including early life events, justice interventions, and changes in informal social control. We will discuss how these findings inform intervention strategies for high-risk, justice-involved individuals.

Authors

• Rachel Van Etten, University of Cincinnati

• Audrey Hickert, University of Cincinnati