| List of figures, boxes and tables | p. ix |
| Acknowledgements | p. xi |
| Preface | p. xiii |
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| What is 'criminal careers' all about? | p. 2 |
| Definitional issues | p. 3 |
| Who are the criminals? | p. 5 |
| Why bother studying criminal careers? | p. 8 |
| Conclusions | p. 12 |
| The Great Debate: competing theoretical approaches and methodological issues | p. 14 |
| Competing theoretical explanations | p. 15 |
| The criminal careers approach | p. 15 |
| The criminal propensity approach | p. 18 |
| The age-crime curve | p. 20 |
| The Gottfredson and Hirschi critiques | p. 21 |
| A General Theory of Crime | p. 24 |
| Evaluating propensity theory | p. 25 |
| Developmental criminology and the life-course approach | p. 27 |
| Evaluating developmental criminology | p. 29 |
| Moffitt's developmental taxonomy | p. 30 |
| Policy implications | p. 33 |
| Conclusions | p. 35 |
| The Great Solution? Exploring the major longitudinal studies | p. 37 |
| Longitudinal designs | p. 39 |
| The pros and cons of longitudinal research | p. 40 |
| The Gluecks' study | p. 42 |
| The Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development | p. 44 |
| The Dunedin Health and Development Study | p. 47 |
| Three landmark longitudinal studies | p. 53 |
| Policy implications | p. 55 |
| Conclusions | p. 56 |
| When does it all start? Onset of a criminal career | p. 59 |
| The Home Office Crime and Justice Survey 2003 | p. 60 |
| Age of onset by offence type | p. 61 |
| Shoplifting as the initial offence of choice | p. 64 |
| Relational factors influencing onset | p. 66 |
| Personal factors influencing onset | p. 66 |
| Monetary factors influencing onset | p. 67 |
| Practical factors influencing onset | p. 68 |
| Advantages and disadvantages of starting offending | p. 69 |
| Young people in care | p. 70 |
| Onset in residential care | p. 71 |
| Prosecution of minor offences by looked-after children | p. 72 |
| Three studies - three lessons? | p. 74 |
| Onset of crime in adulthood | p. 76 |
| Lessons from the three 'classic' longitudinal studies | p. 76 |
| Policy implications | p. 79 |
| Conclusions | p. 80 |
| Continuity and change in a criminal career: persistence and desistance | p. 81 |
| What is persistence? | p. 81 |
| Gender differences among persistent offenders | p. 83 |
| Defining desistance | p. 85 |
| How do we measure desistance? | p. 85 |
| Condemnation scripts and persistent offenders | p. 87 |
| Redemption scripts and desisting offenders | p. 89 |
| Why do some people desist? | p. 90 |
| Why do some people persist? | p. 92 |
| When 'going straight' is 'curved' | p. 93 |
| Benefits and costs of desisting | p. 94 |
| Policy implications | p. 96 |
| Conclusions | p. 98 |
| Specialisation | p. 100 |
| The concept of specialisation | p. 100 |
| Specialisation and typologies of crime | p. 101 |
| Specialisation and theories of crime | p. 103 |
| Measuring specialisation | p. 105 |
| The evidence for and against specialisation | p. 109 |
| Current debates in specialisation | p. 113 |
| Developmental or lifestyle specialisation | p. 115 |
| Concurrent specialists and generalists | p. 116 |
| Specialisation and policy issues | p. 118 |
| Conclusions | p. 119 |
| Dangerousness, prediction and risk | p. 121 |
| Risk and prediction | p. 122 |
| Using criminal careers to assess risk of general reoffending | p. 123 |
| Actuarial and clinical risk | p. 126 |
| Serious repeat offending and risk | p. 127 |
| False positives and false negatives | p. 129 |
| The dangerous offender and dangerous behaviour | p. 131 |
| Predicting recidivism for dangerous offenders | p. 132 |
| Risk of first offending | p. 133 |
| Risk factors for first dangerous offending | p. 135 |
| Policy issues and ethics in relation to risk prevention | p. 137 |
| Moving forward? | p. 140 |
| Policy implications | p. 142 |
| Conclusions | p. 143 |
| Criminal careers for everyman - and woman? | p. 145 |
| The duration of a criminal career | p. 148 |
| Surveillance and human rights | p. 149 |
| When do ex-offenders become like non-offenders? | p. 153 |
| Thinking about non-offenders | p. 154 |
| Comparing the trajectories of non-offenders and convicted offenders | p. 157 |
| So what do we learn? | p. 159 |
| Policy implications | p. 161 |
| Conclusions | p. 163 |
| What's wrong with criminal careers? Moving forward | p. 164 |
| Heredity versus environment | p. 165 |
| Age, period and cohort effects | p. 171 |
| Moving forward - the importance of social change | p. 173 |
| Heinous crimes and national image | p. 174 |
| A dynamic view of the social environment | p. 177 |
| Conclusions | p. 178 |
| References | p. 181 |
| Index | p. 197 |
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