Comparing the criminal careers and childhood risk factors of persistent, chronic, and persistent–chronic offenders
| Author | Maria Ttofi,Tyson Whitten,David P Farrington,Tara R McGee,Ross Homel |
| Date | 01 June 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0004865818781203 |
| Published date | 01 June 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Comparing the criminal
careers and childhood
risk factors of persistent,
chronic, and persistent–
chronic offenders
Tyson Whitten
Griffith University, Griffith Criminology Institute, Australia
Tara R McGee
Griffith University, Griffith Criminology Institute, Australia
Ross Homel
Griffith University, Griffith Criminology Institute, Australia
David P Farrington
Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, UK
Maria Ttofi
Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, UK
Abstract
There have been few efforts to conceptually and empirically distinguish persistent and chron-
ic offenders, despite the prominence of these concepts in the criminological literature.
Research has not yet examined if different childhood risk factors are associated with
offenders who have the longest criminal careers (persistent offenders), commit the most
offences (chronic offenders), or both (persistent–chronic offenders). We address this gap
using data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development. Poverty, poor school
attainment, and family stress had a pervasive impact on all forms of offending in correlational
analyses. Longer criminal career durations were associated with fewer childhood risk factors
than was the case for chronic offenders. Chronic offenders were significantly more likely than
Corresponding author:
Tyson Whitten, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith University, 176 Messines Ridge Road, Brisbane
4122, Australia.
Email: tyson.whitten@griffithuni.edu.au
Australian & New Zealand Journal of
Criminology
2019, Vol. 52(2) 151–173
!The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0004865818781203
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persistent offenders to experience many environmental risks in childhood. When controlling
for all other risk factors, hyperactivity and parental separation uniquely predicted persistent
offending, while high daring and large family size uniquely predicted chronic offending. Our
analyses point to the need for responses based on a philosophy of “proportionate universal-
ism,” where universal multisystemic crime prevention strategies that benefit all children
incorporate program components that are known to influence the unique risk factors for
both persistent and chronic offending.
Keywords
Chronic offending, criminal careers, developmental and life-course criminology, persistent
offending, risk factors
Date received: 26 February 2018; accepted: 14 May 2018
Introduction
Developmental and Life-Course criminology (DLC) is primarily concerned with the
development of criminal and related behaviors, the influence of risk and protective fac-
tors, and the impact of life events on the course of development (Farrington, 2005). One
common underlying idea in DLC is that offenders can be categorized into defined groups,
each characterized by a set of risk factors that can be prioritized in developmental crime
prevention interventions. It is generally agreed that persistent and chronic offenders rep-
resent the smallest groups responsible for the majority of offences, and therefore should
be at the forefront of intervention and incapacitation efforts (Blumstein, Cohen, Roth, &
Visher, 1986; Moffitt, 2018). However, there is much confusion regarding how chronic
and persistent offenders should be defined and measured.
Chronic offenders have received considerable empirical attention since Wolfgang and
his colleagues (1972) published their seminal study on a birth cohort of 9945 Philadelphia
boys. Chronic offenders were identified as those responsible for five or more offences
between the ages of 10 and 18. They comprised six per cent of the birth cohort, or 18 per
cent of the offenders, and were responsible for over half of the cohort’s recorded crimes.
The study by Wolfgang and colleagues (1972) was influential in demonstrating that a
small percentage of people were responsible for a large proportion of crime. This finding
has led to many follow-up studies on chronic offending.
Most studies on chronic offending have adopted Wolfgang and colleagues’ (1972) orig-
inal definition as a small group of offenders responsible for the most crimes (e.g. McGloin
& Stickle, 2011; Piquero, 2000). Others have defined chronic offenders as the small group of
offenders with the longest criminal careers (Remschmidt & Walter, 2010; Wikstr €
om &
Treiber, 2009). Adopting this definition requires chronic offending to be measured by the
duration of offending, and not by the number of offences committed. This divergence in the
definition of chronic offending has led to the use of two distinct measures (the number of
offences and the duration of offending) to identify the same offender type.
Part of the confusion surrounding the concept of chronic offending may be due to
Wolfgang and colleagues’ (1972) use of the word “chronic,” which denotes continuity
152 Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology 52(2)
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