Specialization, versatility and escalation in long-term criminal careers

This paper studies the development of criminal careers and concentrates on types of activity rather than � as typically done - the amounts of activity over the life course. Based on different theories featuring in the current developmental and life course criminology, we deduce distinct hypotheses on the patterns and pathways of criminal behavior over the life course. The hypotheses especially pertain to the level and direction of specialization, versatility and escalation of long term criminal careers. To test our hypotheses, we use longitudinal data on individual offender�s criminal careers from the Dutch �Criminal Career and Life-course Study (CCLS), containing information on long term individual criminal offending careers (i.e. over 60 years), full imprisonment careers and the occurrence and timing of various other life circumstances (marriage, children, death). These data were retrieved for a 4% (N=4615) sample of all individuals whose criminal case was irrevocably disposed of in the Netherlands in 1977. The methodology involves investigating criminal activity in a succession of five-year periods. A latent class analysis is used to identify a fixed number of types of criminal behavior in these periods.