NCJ Number
129890
Date Published
1991
Length
40 pages
Annotation
Adult criminal records from 1,532 offenders who had previously been identified as serious juvenile offenders in California were examined to explore the usefulness of using histories of violent arrests as a basis for classifying adult offenders.
Abstract
Most of the offenders were involved in research studies conducted at juvenile correctional institutions during the 1960's and early 1970's. The amount of adult followup ranged from 5 to 20 years with an average of 14.5 years. Exploratory factor analysis was used to determine the extent to which offenses tended to occur together within criminal careers. The 22 offenses were grouped into five categories: violent offenses, violence-related offenses, property offenses, drug law offenses, and miscellaneous offenses. Results suggested that violent offenders were somewhat different from nonviolent offenders and that certain combinations of violent crimes were committed by the same offenders. However, violence was not a stable characteristic of the criminal careers of certain violent offenders. In addition, the data did not permit the determination of the relative influences of situational factors and predisposing factors. Tables, footnotes, and appended table