Criminal Careers

Osgood and Rowe have suggested that the best ways to answer the current questions in criminal careers research is through building "bridges between theoretical criminology, the study of criminal careers, and policy relevant research" (p. 517). Offering suggestions for moving beyond the current debates, Land has suggested that only through empirical analysis of criminal behavior over time via competing statistical models will the questions of criminal careers research be answered. Loeber and LeBlanc have suggested that only by paying attention to how a criminal career unfolds (e.g., what causes some to begin offending, what predicts desistance, what leads to specialization in offending, what causes an escalation in severity of offending) will the tension between dynamic and static theories of crime be resolved. Future years undoubtedly will see many important contributions to this exciting area of research in criminology.