Criminal Lifestyle Specialization in Criminal Careers in England and Wales

In criminal careers research, specialization has usually been framed by researchers pre-specifying spheres of criminal activity (sexual, violent, robbery etc) and then determining the amount of criminal activity which lies within a certain sphere over a certain time period. However, there is increasing recognition that offenders work in well-defined domains of offending which cut across these groups. Thus, offenders might be involved in both burglary and theft, but unwilling to engage in violent activity. We propose an alternative approach to specialization using latent class analysis and latent transition analysis which seeks to identify such domains of activity, which would represent criminal lifestyles. Offenders staying within a domain over time can be defined as lifestyle specialized; those moving between domains are lifestyle versatile. The concept is assessed on England and Wales birth cohort data on offending, and comparisons are made with traditional measures of specialization.