Key Issues in Criminal Career Research

'This is the 5th book reporting the world-renowned Cambridge longitudinal Study of Delinquent Development, and in my view the best! We senior scientists who learned our first criminology facts from the CSDD will want to own this book, as will students newly learning criminology. This book is organised for busy readers' convenience, chapters are very concise, and each is summarised with a list of its new findings. Each chapter ends with a list of as-yet unanswered questions about crime; giving readers great ideas for new research projects! This book is brilliant on theory, it masterfully integrates developmental, life-course, and crime-careers theories, making sense of them all. 'Key issues' systematically examines fresh data on onset age, offender prevalence, violence specialization, crime seriousness, career duration, offending frequency, co-offending, chronicity, and developmental trajectories of crime careers. 'Key issues' is the best book about crime I have read in 5 years.' Terrie Moffitt, Institute of Psychiatry

'The criminal career paradigm has shaped the empirical study of delinquency and crime for the past quarter century. Using data from The Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development, Piquero, Farrington, and Blumstein present the most thorough and sophisticated investigation of this paradigm to date. Their analyses both replicate earlier core observations and present new, insightful results that advance our understanding of crime across the life-course. The totality of their findings is a quantum leap forward.' Terence P. Thornberry, University of Colorado

'... a major event in criminal career research. The book contains fresh, new quantitative analyses of the offending data derived from the 411 males in the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development - one of the venerable data sets in criminology. The book is also the product of three of the most formidable talents in the area ... Key Issues in Criminal Career Research is an excellent resource for undergraduates and graduate students who are new to the area and an informative piece of scholarship for researchers. The down-to-earth writing style and presentation benefit all audiences.' Criminal Justice Review

Alex R. Piquero, Ph.D. is Professor of Criminology, Law and Society at the University of Florida. He currently serves on the editorial boards of eleven journals including: Criminology, the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, etc. He has been recognized as the leading publisher of articles in criminology/criminal justice from 1996-2000 and again from 2000-4 by articles published in the Journal of Criminal Justice. David P. Farrington, OBE, is Professor of Psychological Criminology at the Institute of Criminology, Cambridge University. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, of the Academy of Medical Sciences, of the British Psychological society and of the American Society of Criminology, and an Honorary Life Member of the British Society of Criminology and of the Division of Forensic Psychology of the British Psychological Society. Alfred Blumstein is a University Professor and the J. Erik Jonsson Professor of Urban Systems and Operations Research and former Dean (from 1986 to 1993) at the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management of Carnegie Mellon University.

1. Introduction; 2. Literature review: A. General criminal careers; B. Organize around contentious issues; 3. Data overview; 4. Prevalence and incidence; 5. Onset age and incidence; 6. Specialization; 7. Onset sequences; 8. Co-offending; 9. Chronicity; 10. Offending trajectories; 11. Career length; 12. Discussion.