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
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.