The study of escalation in criminal careers: conceptualizing escalation at the individual level

Standard methods of examining escalation in criminal careers research have looked at changes in crime seriousness from conviction to conviction for specific sub-samples of offenders. We measured the seriousness of each offence type on a continuous scale from 0 to 10 developed using recent sentencing data. The 1953 birth cohort from the England and Wales Offenders Index followed up to 1999 provided a suitable long-term data set of conviction careers. We discuss the concept of escalation and how to measure it. One approach is to reconceptualize escalation as a latent construct within an individual, and recognize that while some offenders may escalate, others will not. The resulting latent trajectory models identify different groups of offenders with different trajectories. The results are compared with standard approaches and offer new insights in theorizing escalation.