The Career Criminal

The career criminal

The career criminal, or, more pointedly, those individuals who participate in criminal acts on a
regular basis for both a central and constant source of income has, generally, a specific set of
identifying factors which, while conclusive in laymen's terms, fail to meet the criteria necessary
for scientific inquiry. While definitions exist as to what a career criminal is, the research
methods employed in determining these definitions are a large point of contention for criminal
justice theorists, especially due to their potential and virtually imminent inclusion to modern
hypothesis on the subject. These research methods include longitudinal data collection and
compilation, cross-sectional data collection and compilation, and, as at least one group of
theorists argue, the most efficient method, informative interviewing.

The longitudinal research method employs a data collection technique which focuses on the
duration of a particular act--in this case, the so-called criminal career--based not upon
specific incidents, but the length of time measured between such acts (Blumstein, Cohen, and
Farrington, 1988). That is, an individual's propensity for criminal conduct in a so-called
career mode would be measured first by the original act as an origin, then with the succeeding
acts, until a final point became evident. Therefore, such a research method would logically
conclude that an indi...

The Career Criminal

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