CRIMINAL PROPENSITIES, DISCRETE-GROUPS OF OFFENDERS, AND PERSISTENCE IN CRIME

Criminal propensity theorists argue that the causes of variation in of fending behavior can be traced to variation in one or more causal trai ts. Other theorists contend that there is actually more than one type of offender and that more than one causal mechanism operates to explai n offending behavior. In this article, some of the implications of the se two positions are considered. Then, their congruence with recidivis m data from a cohort of post-age-16 North Carolina institutional relea sees (N = 848) is assessed. The analysis focuses specifically on wheth er the correlates of offending persistence are similar across two cate gories of individuals: those who experienced their first adjudication at an early age and those who were first adjudicated at a later age. I n support of both positions, some similarities and some differences in the correlates of persistence were discovered. The differences, howev er, were only evident when the threshold for late first adjudication w as set to age 12. When this threshold was raised to higher ages, the d ifferences disappeared.