Identifying patterns of offending behaviour : a new approach to typologies of crime.

Francis, Brian J. and Fligelstone, Rachel and Soothill, Keith (2004) Identifying patterns of offending behaviour : a new approach to typologies of crime. European Journal of Criminology, 1 (1). pp. 48-87. ISSN 1741-2609

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Abstract

This study presents a new approach to developing a typology of criminal activity. The distinguishing feature of the analysis is that it concentrates on determining types of activity rather than the amounts of activity over the life course. The methodology involves investigating criminal activity in a succession of five-year periods rather than the conventional approach of summarizing a ‘lifetime’ of crime. This provides scope for assessing changes and pathways of criminal activity as offenders grow older, and gives new insight into the concepts of specialization and versatility. The Home Office Offenders Index birth cohort for 1953 provided official conviction histories up to 1993 (age 40), and latent class analysis identified a fixed number of types of criminal behaviour separately for males and females. The patterns of offending varied markedly between males and females. Male offending (with nine identified types) showed greater diversity than female offending (with three identified types). For the males, each type of offending had a distinct age profile, but this was not evident with the females. A new definition of offending specialization is given, and is shown to increase for males as offenders grow older. A case study on one of the male offending types illustrates the potential for identifying pathways of crime.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
European Journal of Criminology
Additional Information:
RAE_import_type : Journal article RAE_uoa_type : Statistics and Operational Research
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3300/3308
Subjects:
?? typologies • criminal trajectories • clusters • latent class analysis • pathways • specializationlawqa mathematics ??
ID Code:
2420
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
31 Mar 2008 10:57
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
15 Jul 2024 10:21