FREE ESSAY ON DETERMINING WHAT MAKES A CAREER CRIMINAL

DETERMINING WHAT MAKES A CAREER CRIMINAL

Determining What Makes A Career Criminal
The career criminal, or, more pointedly, those individuals who participate in criminal
acts on a regular basis for both a central and constant source of income has, generally,
a specific set of identifying factors which, while conclusive in laymen's terms, fail to
meet the criteria necessary for scientific inquiry. While definitions exist as to what a
career criminal is, the research methods employed in determining these definitions are a
large point of contention for criminal justice theorists, especially due to their
potential and virtually imminent inclusion to modern hypothesis on the subject. These
research methods include longitudinal data collection and compilation, cross-sectional
data collection and compilation, and, as at least one group of theorists argue, the most
efficient method, informative interviewing.
The longitudinal research method employs a data collection technique which focuses on the
duration of a particular act--in this case, the so-called criminal career--based not upon
specific incidents, but the length of time measured between such acts (Blumstein, Cohen,
and Farrington, 1988). That is, an individual's propensity for criminal conduct in a
so-called career mode would be measured first by the original act as an origin, then with
the succeeding acts, until a final point became evident. Therefore, such a research
method would logically conclude that an individual who performed or participated in
criminal conduct on two occasions several years apart would be considered a career
criminal. It is for this reason, that criminal justice theorists differ as to the
applicability and relevance of the longitudinal research method (Blumstein, Cohen, and
Farrington, 1988).
Since the longitudinal research method could construe two independent--or even two
interdependant--criminal acts as the foundational make-up of a career criminal, theorists
may hypothesize incorrectly as to the actuality of an individual having a career based in
criminal behavior. Because it is widely believed by opponents of the longitudinal
research method that the mere occurrence of two criminal acts spaced out over an
individual's lifetime or testing window is not indicative of the so-called career
criminal modus operandi, the research method has increasingly lost its popularity and
application in such studies, unless, of course, it is supported or otherwise confirmed by
other utilized research procedures (Blumstein, Cohen, and Farrington, 1988). One of these
alternative testing and research methods is the cross-sectional data collection and
compilation model.
The cross-sectional data collection and compilation model, when applied to the criminal
career hypothezation, measures the probability of occurrence of a particular act of
criminal conduct or other so-called criminal behavior. The cross-sectional model allows
for a glimpse into each individual criminal act which may be thought to, when compiled,
comprise a framework which indicates that individual is a career criminal. For this
reason, the cross-sectional model is infinitely more applicable and accurate in
determining, or at least providing indicators which would lead to a determination, of
conduct constituting that of a career criminal. While such assistance is immeasurable for
a determination of whether or not an individual is a career criminal, it still falls
short of a definite model for such identification. For this reason, many criminal justice
theorists feel that the individual application of the cross-sectional model is
inappropriate for its unsupported inclusion into relevant scientific hypothesis. Once
again, however, when such data is adequately supported or otherwise confirmed by other
information, inclusion is proper.
Criminal justice theorists have relied on either one, or both models since the inception
of investigation into all areas of criminal behavior. Such data, however, comes under
fire if, and when, other theories surface which either provide additional information, or
information which is more in-depth and in deference to that data already obtained and
reported upon (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1988). The dilemma, of course, is that regardless
of how detailed and in-depth even the most comprehensive of testing techniques are, there
is always one method which is the most detailed, as it originates from the primary
source. This data is called informative interviewing (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1988).
Informative interviewing is a method through which criminal justice theorists acquire
information from the primary source (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1988). In the case of the
present issue, deliberating over the question of what behavior is indicative of a career
criminal, information would most probably be extracted from those individuals who
exhibited the stereotypical traits of what is referred to as a career criminal. These
would include individuals whose primary source of income is derived from the perpetration
of crimes, the acquisition and conversion of cash or property into cash for personal use,
and the consistency of these acts. That is, are they performed on a verifiably consistent
basis to the aforementioned ends of sustaining life for a particular individual (Weis,
1991). 
Alternatively, the informative interviewing method would need to address those groups
which other testing methods and their proponents have identified as possible career
criminals. These would include those individuals who perpetrate more than one criminal
act in the course of their lifetime or testing window, and those who perpetrate multiple
criminal acts in an effort to maintain financial stability, as illuminated by the
longitudinal research method and the cross-sectional data collection and compilation
model, respectively (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1988).
In total, the informative interviewing technique is the most inclusive of all the testing
measures, as it does not presuppose the existence of facts or reasoned support thereof,
nor rely on a multitude of secondary sources for its hypothetical theorizations.
Opponents, however, argue that the single, most important drawback to utilization of the
informative interview technique for central reliance in a scientific study, is that there
exists no guarantee that the information being obtained from the individual in question
is, indeed, a factual representation of his or her physical and mental manifestations and
reasoning prior to, during, and after performance of the criminal act (Weis, 1991).
Though this seems a wholly valid and relevant argument based on the stereotypical nature
of such individuals who maintain or, at least, are thought to maintain a life of crime,
the scientist-interviewer has a better probability of determining the truthfulness of the
individual when he or she is face to face, rather than viewing so-called research on a
two dimensional document (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1988). For this reason, it seems that
the informative interviewing technique is the most reliable indicator of an individual's
propensity to maintain a career firmly rooted in criminal activity.
Finally, the very issue of career criminals cannot be determined by those studies which
seek to apply a virtual cornucopia of variables and other indicators into a multi-tiered
graphic conceptualization of a theory (Weis, 1991). This is so because such a
conceptualization, while attempting to scientifically duplicate the environment which
produces career criminals, cannot, and thus leads the criminal justice theorist on a road
wrought with balances and counterbalances which seek to clarify and provide for those
responses which do not otherwise fall into the neatly, albeit mechanically defined
categories (Elliot, 1994). Such is not the nature of a career criminal, and, ironically,
may be indicative to the very mechanisms he or she seeks to obviate when choosing such an
alternative, societally unaccepted posture as to self-sustenance. As the informative
interview points out, asking someone who knows is infinitely more reliable than relying
on text written by someone who thinks they know.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Blumstein, A., Cohen, J., and Farrington, D. (1988). Criminal career research: it's value
for criminology.
Blumstein, A., Cohen, J., and Farrington, D. (1988). Longitudinal and criminal career
research: further clarifications. Criminology, vol. 26, no. 1.
Elliot, D. S. (1994). Serious violent offenders: onset, developmental course, and
termination--The American Society of Criminology 1993 Presidential Address. Criminology,
vol. 32, no. 1.
Gottfredson, M., and Hirschi, T. (1988). Science, public policy, and the career paradigm.
Criminology, vol. 26, no. 1.
Sutherland, E. H. (1994). The professional thief. classics of criminology. IL: Waveland
Press.
Welsh, A. E. (1991). Issues in the measurement of criminal careers. Criminal Justice 400
packet, fall semester, 1995 Iowa State University.