Haapanen 2007

Crime & Delinquency
Volume 53 Number 1
January 2007 133-155
© 2007 Sage Publications
Persistent Criminality 10.1177/0011128706294443
http://cad.sagepub.com
and Career Length hosted at
http://online.sagepub.com
Rudy Haapanen
Lee Britton
Tim Croisdale
Juvenile Research Branch
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
This study is an examination of persistent offending and its implications for the
understanding and investigation of desistance and career length. Persistence,
especially as it is operationalized using official measures, is characterized as
fundamentally a measure of resistance to formal social control: continued
crime in the face of increasingly severe sanctions. This conceptualization is
used to explain findings from a longitudinal analysis of arrests for individuals
released from California Youth Authority (CYA) institutions. Findings indicate
long and extensive careers and characteristic declines with age but also con-
siderable variation. This variation, which can be explained by resistance to
formal social control, complicates the study of career length. Finally, results
indicate a strong crime reduction effect of criminal justice interventions, both
for the CYA and for later prison terms, if any. These results are discussed in
terms of their implications for understanding and studying career length among
serious, persistent offenders.
Keywords: career; persistence; career length; delinquency
O n a conceptual level, persistent criminality and career length go together.

Career length, with consideration of onset, duration, and desistence, pro-
vides a framework for understanding how long an offender engages in crimi-
nal behavior—that is, of persistence. Career length is part of an approach for
studying criminality that focuses on the criminal “career,” operationalized in
research as a longitudinal sequence of offending made up of four components:
participation, frequency, seriousness, and length (Blumstein, Cohen, Roth, &
Visher, 1986, in Gomez-Smith & Piquero, 2005; Farrington, 1992). Persistent
Authors’ Note: The points of view presented in this article are those of the authors and do not
necessarily represent the official position of the California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation.
133
Downloaded from cad.sagepub.com at QUEENS UNIV LIBRARIES on March 6, 2015

134 Crime & Delinquency
offending implies criminal behavior that is more than just a momentary lapse
in judgment and therefore provides a fertile ground for studying the factors
that may influence the breadth, depth, and length of criminal careers.
Contemporary criminology has taken a special interest in persistent
offenders because their control appears to hold great promise for crime reduc-
tion and because they may help us to understand the factors underlying crime
in general. Whether theories focus on external factors that cause individuals
to commit crimes or on differences among people that differentially predis-
pose them to criminal behavior, the study of the most active and persistent
offenders should, so the logic goes, help us to identify those factors or char-
acteristics that have the greatest influence on criminal behavior and career
length. This article explores a particular characteristic, resistance to social
control, that appears to differentiate persistent offenders from those whose
criminality is short lived or relatively minor. The intent is not to add another
dimension to the thinking on persistent criminality but rather to emphasize a
factor that has been generally recognized for some time. This factor, however,
complicates both the understanding and empirical investigation of career
length and persistent offending.
A great deal of recent research has focused on differences between per-
sistent offenders and other offenders (Elliott, 1994; Gottfredson & Hirschi,
1990; Listwan, 2001; Loeber & Farrington, 1998; Moffitt, 1993; Nagin &
Farrington, 1992a, 1992b; Nagin & Paternoster, 1991; White, Moffitt, Earls,
Robins, & Silva, 1990). This research, and currently popular characteriza-
tions of persistent offenders (Caspi et al., 1994; Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990;
Moffitt, 1993), point to both a higher tendency to act impulsively and a lower
ability to restrain that behavior in response to internal or external constraints.
Although a general indifference to rules and external controls is implied in
these criminological theories, there is no explicit discussion of differences in
response to correctional efforts. Thus, these characterizations generally do
not speak directly to one critical defining characteristic of the most persistent
offenders: their resistance to those interventions and punishments meted out
by the criminal justice system—and by family, friends, school officials, and
employers—in direct response to their criminal behavior.
This article starts by observing that persistence, as it is operationally
defined in research, is fundamentally a measure of resistance to (formal)
social control. Arrests indicate not only criminal behavior that has been
detected by law enforcement but also interventions. Repeated arrests indicate
repeated failure to desist in spite of whatever sanctions are imposed.
Furthermore, arrests come to indicate this kind of resistance more and more
as the number of arrests goes up because sanction severity typically increases

Haapanen et al. / Persistent Criminality and Career Length 135
with increasing numbers of arrests. The more persistent an offender is, the
more that persistence is an indicator of resistance.
We will then turn to a discussion of the implications of this view for
research on criminal careers, in general, and career length, in particular.
This resistance to sanctions is one aspect of a broader resistance to social con-
trol that has implications for career length, for research on patterns of crime
among persistent offenders, and for rehabilitation of these offenders. Because
acceptance of social control is fundamental to all prosocial lifestyles, persis-
tent offenders are seriously unsuited to conventional lifestyles, making overall
prognosis poor and the likelihood of continued criminal behavior relatively
high throughout the life span. In this view, persistent criminality is not so
much about being criminal as it is about not being noncriminal. But trajecto-
ries based on this principle can be expected to be unstable and unpredictable,
relatively free from the stabilizing effects of social control. These trajectories,
however, are not free from the normal decline associated with age nor from
the suppressant effect of the criminal justice system. Although complete
desistance (that career-ending point that defines career length) may never be
reached, the overall expected level of criminal behavior will decline to a point
where it approaches zero. These patterns will be illustrated using data from a
long-term follow-up of serious juvenile offenders released from California
Youth Authority (CYA) institutions during the past two decades.
Intervention, Not Data Collection

For the most part, studies of persistent offenders have relied on official
records.1 The criminal justice processes that result in official measures, how-
ever, such as arrests, convictions, sentences, and so on, are not designed to be
data collection processes. Rather, they are designed, among other things, to
respond to misbehavior—to initiate activities intended to mitigate the harm
done (e.g., return stolen property, break up a bar fight) and to reduce future
criminal behavior by the perpetrator or others. Arrests measure interventions
as much as they measure the behavior of the individuals being arrested.
Furthermore, the more often a person is arrested, the more likely each arrest
will initiate actions (either punitive or rehabilitative) toward that individual.2
The arrest–intervention process is most clearly seen at the juvenile level,
where persistent offending begins. The budding persistent offender becomes
known first through an extensive pattern of nontrivial juvenile arrests. These
arrests, however, trigger efforts to curb that behavior. In fact, the expressed
intent of the juvenile justice process is to use criminal conduct as an indicator
of the need for intervention. Intervention does not require arrest, of course, and

an arrest may not lead to any intervention beyond the arrest itself. Indeed, for
juveniles especially, arrests occur in the context of a broad social system of
formal and informal interventions intended to curb troublesome behavior and
encourage the development of prosocial lifestyles. Typically, arrests of juve-
niles start the formal processes that evaluate the informal processes and lead
to a recommendation about the need for intervention backed by the juvenile
court. As a general rule, serious offenses are taken as indicators that informal
social controls have failed and that formal intervention is required. Serious
crimes also suggest a level of dangerousness and sophistication that call for
measures to protect the public. For less serious offenses, however, there is
more leeway to craft interventions in an attempt to best meet the needs of juve-
nile offenders, their families, and their victims. Probation departments and
juvenile courts are generally expected to support informal efforts of family and
schools and to intervene as little as possible to effect the desired changes in
behavior. The type and intensity of these decisions have been shown to be
affected by the sex of the offender, the philosophy of the particular court, the
seriousness of the offense, prior record, and the juvenile’s response to earlier
efforts (Cohen & Kluegel, 1979).
Correction and Selection

According to Cohen and Kluegal (1979), a major consideration by the
juvenile court in determining appropriate intervention is the youth’s response
to previous efforts, both informal and formal. Although much variation exists
across time and space, the system generally increases both the treatment
aspect and the consequences of criminal conduct in response to a youth’s fail-
ure to respond to lower levels of intervention. A youth who was previously
cited and released to his or her parents may be placed on probation and
required to attend school, obtain substance abuse treatment, or observe cur-
few. That disposition is typically accompanied by a stern admonition that
continued misbehavior will lead to more serious consequences. Refusal to
meet these conditions and/or another arrest may lead to placement in a foster
home or group home, with additional restrictions and treatment requirements
and a reminder that tougher responses may follow. And so it goes.
It is established fact that most first-time juvenile arrestees are not
arrested again, and the majority of those arrested twice do not get arrested
a third time (Shannon, 1991; Shannon, McKim, Curry, & Haffner, 1988;
Wolfgang, Thornberry, & Figlio, 1987, in Gomez-Smith & Piquero, 2005).
For these nonrepeaters, whatever consequences they experience for their
behavior, formal or informal, are apparently enough to put them back on
track—to correct their behavior. Conversely, for those resisting sanctions

associated with their second or third arrest, it is likely they will offend again
(Farrington, 1992; Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990).
Those offenders whose behavior is not corrected are subject to the next
level of intervention. Youth who commit serious and violent crimes may be
moved quickly to the most severe interventions, but even the chronic light-
weights will generally experience increasingly severe penalties as they con-
tinue to be arrested. These increasing consequences are meant to deter and to
pressure young offenders to participate in rehabilitative efforts, which may
also increase in intensity. Along this path, however, juvenile justice agencies
probably run out of treatment options (at least increasingly intensive ones)
long before they run out of punishment or sanction options. Furthermore, the
recipient may also experience any intensive treatment, which requires ongo-
ing commitment and hard work, as punitive.
Young offenders committed to secure institutions, such as those operated
by the CYA,3 are extreme resisters. They tend to have very long histories of
intervention at many levels. The average number of arrest charges for CYA
commitments is around 10.4 These youth tend to be well known to the
youth-serving and social service agencies in their communities and to the
police and probation departments (Richardson, 2001). Indeed, repeated
failure to respond to outside interventions is a clear and consistent charac-
teristic of these persistent offenders.
Although this point is well understood in textbooks of criminology and
criminal justice, it seems to get lost when arrests are used to study patterns of
criminal behavior and to differentiate among offenders. Modern analytic
techniques have permitted detailed analysis of trajectories of criminal behav-
ior (Blokland, 2005; Bushway, Piquero, Broidy, Cauffman, & Mazerolle,
2001; Ezell & Cohen, 2005; Piquero, Brame, Mazerolle, & Haapanen, 2002).
In these analyses, arrests are treated as limited, but relatively unbiased, indi-
cators of underlying criminal behavior patterns. Differences in the number
of arrests occurring over particular periods are used to indicate differences in
criminal activity and, more basically, criminal propensity. However, if we
understand arrests and other criminal justice actions to be active interven-
tions, their meaning in the context of studying criminal careers changes.
Arrests beyond the first no longer merely indicate ongoing criminal activity
that comes to the attention of authorities; they indicate resistance or failure to
respond to any intervention associated with prior arrests. This is a profound
shift in meaning. Repeated arrests, in other words, indicate criminal behavior
that occurs despite repeated and escalating attempts to eradicate it.
Although criminologists have not focused specifically on resistance to social
control as a primary factor in persistence, it is included, as least implicitly, as
part of the overall characterization that persistent offenders are different from

other offenders. The distinction between life course persistent offenders and
adolescent-limited offenders in the work of Moffitt (1993) and Caspi et al.
(1994) incorporates resistance to social control, as does the concept of “low
self-control” presented by Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990), which seems to
describe primarily the long-term, active (i.e., persistent) offender. Both char-
acterizations recognize that exhibiting impulsiveness, recklessness, or aggres-
sive behavior at high levels and/or over long periods virtually requires that a
youngster be unwilling or unable to respond to those forces of social control
normally arrayed against these behaviors. The importance of this resistance
to long-term criminal trajectories is also implied by major life course devel-
opment theories (see Sampson & Laub, 2003). Life course changes that
reduce crime are seen to involve voluntarily entering into social relationships,
such as marriage or employment, that demand compliance to rules and accep-
tance of the legitimacy of rule enforcement.
These current conceptions of persistent criminality include, then, a fail-
ure to respond to external, and internal, controls but emphasize the latter.
The life course persistent offenders (Caspi et al., 1994; Moffitt, 1993)
have been characterized in terms of low “constraint” and high “negative
emotionality”—personality traits that reduce internal controls and compli-
ance to external controls (Caspi et al., 1994). Similarly, Gottfredson and
Hirschi’s (1990) description of low self-control contains both elements: a
“vulnerability to the temptations of the moment” (p. 87) and an unwilling-
ness to conform to expectations associated with jobs, family, or friends. The
low self-control individual
appears to have little control over his or her own desires. When such desires
conflict with long-term interests, those lacking self-control opt for the desires
of the moment, whereas those with greater self-control are governed by the
restraints imposed by the consequences of acts displeasing to family, friends,
and the law. (p. xv)
In both theories, the same characteristics that reduce internal controls on

behavior (self-regulation, self-control) are seen to also reduce the efficacy of
external controls, which draw their strength from (and mobilize) internal con-
trols. External controls provide the framework of norms and expectations to
which the internal controls respond. Low internal controls and resistance to
social control, then, may be seen as two sides of the same coin. Repeated
offenders not only lack the self-control or personal restraint to keep them out
of trouble, they are also able to resist the increasing sanctions imposed by
outside agents of social control.

It is possible, of course, that individuals can be resistant to social control and

not drawn to criminality because of fear for personal safety, respect for other
people, or mental disorder. Likewise, it is possible for people to have criminal
tendencies, based on recklessness, greed, or a hot temper, and to be responsive
to social control. The former may lead unproductive and dysfunctional, but
not particularly criminal, lives. The latter may act criminally until they are
caught and punished, at which point they turn their lives around, becoming
prosocial and productive citizens (Moffitt, 1993). It is the “perfect storm” of
criminal tendencies coupled with resistance to social control that creates and
recreates the lifestyle that continues to include major brushes with the law.
Persistent Criminality and Career Length

Given this conception of persistent criminality, what might we expect the
adult criminal career trajectories to be like for youth identified in their teens
as the most persistent offenders? First, we would expect criminal careers of
highly persistent offenders to be long and active. To the extent that the influ-
ence of both internal and external controls is diminished, there is little to curb
the tendency to use extralegal means to achieve ordinary goals. This contin-
uation of criminal behavior well into adulthood for serious juvenile offenders
has been well documented (Haapanen, 1990; Haapanen & Jesness, 1982;
Piquero et al., 2002; Sampson & Laub, 1993). In fact, we might expect that
these young, persistent offenders would continue to commit crimes at high
rates throughout their life. However, this continued high-rate offending has
not been found. Rather, these offenders show declines in arrests with age,
although these rates continue to be higher than those found for the general
population at each age (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990; Haapanen, 1990).
Moreover, some of these offenders appear to slow down faster than others and
may desist completely at earlier ages, suggesting the fruitfulness of research
into the factors that speed desistence (Farrington, 2003; Laub & Sampson,
1993; Piquero et al., 2002).
Second, within this general pattern of decline with age, the present concep-
tion of persistent offending would lead to the expectation that criminal behav-
ior would be unstable, marked by ups and downs in arrests, and unpredictable,
reflecting the influence of shifting momentary circumstances and opportunities
more than of any stable propensity toward committing crimes. These variations
will coincide with changing social circumstances, which are themselves unsta-
ble for these offenders (Haapanen, 1990; Robins, 1966; Sampson & Laub,
2003, 2005). Low internal controls, along with resistance to external controls,
will lead to avoidance of stabilizing entanglements, such as marriages and jobs,

and the kind of freedom to pursue momentary desires that comes from having
little to lose (Allerton, 1972; Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990; Hagedorn, 1994;
Jacobs & Wright, 1999). This condition also increases the influence of unpre-
dictable situational factors in the offenders’ lives, thereby incorporating consid-
erable random “noise” into their behavior patterns. As we shall see, this noise
could substantially complicate the study of criminal careers for these offenders.
Third, we would expect that deeply ingrained resistance to social control
would not be easily overcome and that the search for causes of declines in
crime with age should not underestimate that role of criminal justice sanc-
tions. Changes in individual arrest patterns seem to be associated with
changes in social circumstances, especially those that bring with them
increases in social control, such as marriage and jobs (Haapanen, 1990;
Sampson & Laub, 1993, 2005). Some leading criminologists view this asso-
ciation as evidence that these informal social controls have a profound influ-
ence on criminal behavior (Sampson & Laub, 2005). It is equally plausible,
however, that participation in these social arrangements is made possible by
an increasing willingness to put up with their restrictions. That is, offenders
may be forced into increased conformity rather than seduced into it. Without
denying the association between increased involvement in marriage, family,
and jobs, on one hand, and reductions in criminal behavior, on the other, we
might expect these persistent offenders to be affected by their criminal justice
experiences over time. Sanctions may contribute to the overall decline in
arrests with age and set the stage for the adoption of less criminal lifestyles
along the road. Evidence for these effects will also be presented.
The Data
These points will be all illustrated using data from a recent long-term follow-
up of young men and women released from state juvenile correctional facilities
in California during a 15-year period from 1988 through 2001. Data cover all
arrest charges known to the California Department of Justice (DOJ) for 30,229
youth (29,246 males and 983 females) released from CYA institutions between
1988 and 2001. The analyses excluded youth who were not assigned ID
numbers by the California Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation
at entry to the CYA, those who died while on parole, and those who were
paroled to non-California settings (paroled to other states or deported). Most of
these youth were released to parole, but some were discharged directly from
institutions, having reached their maximum age of jurisdiction. Table 1 shows
the breakdown of the final sample by gender and year of release.

Table 1
Cases Included in the California Youth Authority (CYA) Follow-Up
Analysis by Year of First Release From CYA Facilities
Male Female
Total
Year of Release N n % n %
1988 2,274 2,224 97.8 50 2.2

1989 2,655 2,599 97.9 56 2.1
1990 2,593 2,544 98.1 49 1.9
1991 2,307 2,250 97.5 57 2.5
1992 2,350 2,273 96.7 77 3.3
1993 2,375 2,320 97.9 55 2.1
1994 2,091 2,035 97.7 56 2.3
1995 2,019 1,957 97.1 62 2.9
1996 2,141 2,069 96.9 72 3.1
1997 2,333 2,224 95.3 109 4.7
1998 1,916 1,822 95.0 94 5.0
1999 1,819 1,753 96.4 66 3.6
2000 1,574 1,495 95.0 79 5.0
2001 1,781 1,680 94.3 101 5.7
Total 30,228 29,245 96.8 983 3.2
Arrest data covered the period from first release (parole or direct dis-
charge) through 2003. The follow-up period therefore varied by year of
release from the CYA. DOJ rap sheet data cover arrests occurring in
California and, by mutual agreement, some arrests occurring in neighboring
states (Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona). No attempt was made to gather infor-
mation on arrests occurring in other states. All adult arrests (individuals older
than 18 years of age) are included, but law enforcement agencies in
California are not required to submit records on individual juvenile arrests.
The analyses therefore focused on arrests occurring after age 18.
Analyses focused on arrest rates by age (age–crime curves) following first
release from the CYA. Estimates for each age included any youth with data
for that age. Youth released after the age of 18, for example, would not be
included in the estimate for age 18. Similarly, the year of release determined
the amount of follow-up and, together with the age at release, determined the
maximum age at which each youth contributed to the estimates. Estimates for
older ages overrepresented youth released in earlier years and/or at later ages.
Although some youth were followed to age 40, the number of cases was too
small to reasonably assume representativeness or stability of the estimates.

For the total sample, estimates were calculated to age 38. For analysis of sub-
groups, estimates were calculated to age 35.
Data on adult prison terms for members of the sample were obtained from
the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Offender
Information Services Branch. Entry and release dates were used to identify
ages when youth were incarcerated in adult prison, and these individuals
were not included in the arrest estimates for those ages. Entry and release
dates were also used to calculate preprison and postprison rates of arrest by
age. No attempt was made to control for time the youth may have spent incar-
cerated in local jails, other states, or federal facilities during the follow-up
period.
All arrests were counted except traffic violations and arrests resulting
from parole warrants only (e.g., missing on parole). Conviction information
was not included in the analysis. Types of arrests were determined by Law
Enforcement Information Center Summary Codes, which are similar to
those used by the FBI in the Uniform Crime Reports.
Results
As expected, the former CYA youth, both males and females, had long and
extensive arrest histories. Figure 1 shows the overall age–crime curves, by
gender, from age 18 to age 35 for females and to age 38 for males. Several
interesting points can be made about these figures. First, these estimates are
very high as compared to general population estimates. For example, data
available from the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics
Web site indicate that in 2003, the total arrest rate for individuals 21 to 24
years of age was 12,566 per 100,000 population. The youth in this follow-up
sample were arrested at the rate of about 105,600 arrests per 100,000 (greater
than 8 times the rate of arrest) during the 21 to 24 age period. The second
observation that can be made is that the rate of arrest for females is also very
high, suggesting that persistence is not simply a male phenomenon. Third, for
males, the arrest rate peaks at age 21 rather than at the usual peak of offend-
ing at ages 18 or 19 (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990). We will return to this
finding below. Fourth, after peaking at age 21, the trajectory for males is
clearly downward, although there appears to be some leveling out around age
35. Additional years of follow-up will be required to determine if these arrest
rates continue downward or level off. Overall, these figures attest to the con-
tinued criminal behavior of young offenders identified as the most serious
and persistent in California.

Figure 1
Average Arrest Charges by Age Following First California
Youth Authority Release for Males and Females
1.6
1.4
Average Arrest Charges
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
−
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
Age
Male (n=29,245) Female (n=983)
The importance of persistence as a precursor to later criminal conduct

helps to explain a seemingly curious inverse relationship between seriousness
of commitment offense for these youth and later criminal conduct. Figure 2
shows the age–crime curves for male youth committed for violent, property,
drug, or other offenses. Clearly, those committed for violent offenses had
the lowest rates of arrest, followed by youth committed for other offenses
(mostly sex offenses and weapons violations, which can be argued to be vio-
lent in nature). The highest rates of arrest were found for those committed for
property offenses (burglary, auto theft, and other theft) and for drug offenses.
This inverse relationship between seriousness of commitment offense and
subsequent arrest rates is commonly found in recidivism studies and reflects
the considerations used in selecting youth for CYA commitment. Juveniles
are committed to state custody in California because they have committed
a very serious criminal offense, have failed to respond to every interven-
tion available at the local level, or both. For less serious offenses, the
history of intervention, including number of priors, weighs heavier in the

Figure 2
Youth Authority Release by Commitment Offense Type
2.0
1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
−
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
Age
Violent (n=14,457) Property (n=10,276)

Drug (n=3,376) Other Law (n=2,119)
decision to commit. Property and drug offenders, then, will more likely be
committed because of prior failure to respond to formal social control—that
is, persistence.
Instability of Criminal Behavior

As illustrated above, the combination of criminality and resistance to social
control leads to a high probability of arrest. These same factors, we have
argued, also create considerable instability and unpredictability of criminal
behavior within the persistent offender population. The result is a great deal of
noise (random variation) in criminal behavior of persistent offenders, which
reduces the ability to predict differences among them or over time (Cernkovich
& Giordano, 2001; Haapanen, 1990; Haapanen & Jesness, 1982).
This instability and unpredictability complicate the study of persistent
offenders because the meaning of observed differences among offenders or
over time is not clear. A high level of random variation means that large
samples are necessary for the study of patterns and group differences. To
illustrate this point, we selected random samples of about 100 cases, about 250

Figure 3
Average Arrest Charges by Age Following First California Youth
Authority Release for Random Samples of About 100 Cases
1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
−
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
Age
cases, and about 500 cases from a larger population (n = 6,670) who had arrest
data from age 19 to age 32, calculated average arrests by age, and created
simple age–crime curves (Figures 3, 4, and 5). As shown in Figure 3, the curves
for groups of 100 cases show a great deal of difference from one another and
from the averages for all the cases in the population (shown by the heavy line).
These differences appear both in terms of magnitude at any particular age and
in terms of the shape of the line. Generalizations to the population based on
any of the random samples could be very far off. Conversely, a “desistance pat-
tern” found for a subgroup of the larger population could easily be the result of
this kind of random variation. Additional analyses (not shown) found that
among active offenders, lulls of two or three years were common.
The plotted lines converge somewhat when 250 cases are included in
each plotted line (Figure 4), but there is still considerable variation among
these randomly identified groups. Even groups of 500 (Figure 5) show
some variation and could lead to different interpretations of the age–crime
relationship for these persistent offenders.
Farrington (2003) and Piquero et al. (2002) argue for continued investi-
gation of differences in trajectories of crime to identify factors that lead to

Figure 4
1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
-
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
Age
Figure 5
1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
−
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
Age

desistence and shorter criminal career lengths for subgroups of offenders.

Such investigation would appear to be hampered by the very characteristics
of persistent offenders: instability and unpredictability.
Criminal Justice Interventions

Because of the instability in lifestyles, the unwillingness or inability
to maintain long-term commitments to jobs, families, or other stabilizing
institutions, and the apparent unresponsiveness to all efforts to curb their
criminal behavior, persistent offenders become the targets of increasingly
severe penalties. And even though these offenders have shown themselves
to be relatively immune to the effects of punishment, there is little else at
the justice system’s command for responding to their behavior.
Given that these offenders persist in their behavior, it is tempting to con-
clude that these criminal justice sanctions are ineffective, at least for these
particular offenders. Indeed, proponents of life course theories argue that
the only possible effects of incarceration are bad ones because they separate
offenders from their communities and thereby disrupt and/or prevent the
establishment of attachments to family, friends, and jobs (Sampson & Laub,
2005). However, although these unfortunate side effects can be expected, the
point of incarceration is to verify that continued criminal behavior will have
undesirable consequences and to thereby encourage the offender to find alter-
natives. Prior studies have shown crime reduction effects of criminal justice
sanctions (Haapanen, 1990; Murray & Cox, 1979). Criminal behavior, as
measured by arrests, was found to increase dramatically prior to sanctions
and found to be considerably lower after incarceration than before.
The present study allowed us to look at this effect in two ways. In the first,
we focused on whether the youth released from CYA were affected by being
under the jurisdiction of the CYA. Most age–crime analyses show arrest rates
to peak at age 18 and to decline quickly after that. As noted above, we found
that for these offenders released from the CYA, arrests peaked, instead, at age
21. Believing that it was no coincidence that this is the age when jurisdiction
automatically ends for most youth committed to the CYA, we carried the analy-
sis one step further to investigate whether arrests increased after jurisdiction
ended. Not all youth, it turns out, have jurisdiction that ends at age 21. For youth
with relatively serious crimes, such as murder, assault with a deadly weapon,
rape, and aggravated robbery, jurisdiction extends to age 25. This difference pro-
vided an opportunity to look at two different points for two known subgroups.
As shown in Figure 6, arrests remained relatively low throughout the
jurisdiction period for both groups. For both groups, arrests peaked at those

Figure 6
Average Arrest Charges by Age Following First
California Youth Authority (CYA) Release by
Maximum Age of Discharge From CYA Jurisdiction
1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
−
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
Age
Max=21 (n=17,872) Max=25 (n=11,297)
ages when CYA jurisdiction automatically ended. These results suggest that
being under the supervision of the justice system, even if the youth was no
longer in custody, reduced criminal behavior.
Our second look at the effects of criminal justice sanctions involved
calculating arrest rates by age for groups who entered adult prison at various
ages following release from the CYA, along with summary curves for all
youth who later entered prison and for those who had no prison terms during
the follow-up (see Figure 7). Because there were 13 of the entry groups (rang-
ing from entry at age 18 to entry at age 30), the chart is very busy, but the
main observations are apparent nevertheless. First, for each group, arrests
leading up to an adult prison term increased over time from age 18 on, peaked
during the age preceding the term (e.g., for those entering at age 29, arrests
peaked at age 28, reflecting the arrests leading directly to the prison sen-
tence), and then dropped off quickly, remaining at a relatively low level. The
peaks for the various entry age groups were similar, suggesting that the selec-
tion process for prison terms was roughly the same at each age, but it should
be noted that the number of offenders in each group got smaller and smaller

Figure 7
Youth Authority Release by Age of First Entry Into Prison
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
Any Prison Term
1.5
1.0
0.5
No Prison Terms
−
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
Age
for older age groups. The net effect of the reduced postprison arrest rates was
that the age–crime curve for all offenders who served prison terms descended
toward the line for those who did not serve prison terms.
Extending this analysis, our third approach isolated the preprison and post-
prison arrest rates at each age to distinguish the effect of prison from the nor-
mal drop associated with age. This approach allowed us to control for age
effects as we studied pre–post differences in arrest rates. The results of this
analysis are shown in Figure 8. The four lines on the chart show the following:
1. Rates by age prior to their first prison term for offenders who went to
prison
2. Rates by age following release from prison for offenders who went to
prison
3. Rates by age across all offenders who went to prison (at younger ages,
this line is based mostly on preprison rates, and at older ages, it is based
mostly on postrelease rates)
4. Rates by age for all offenders who had no known prison terms
For those offenders in the sample who served prison terms, rates of arrest
prior to prison were much higher than rates of arrest after release. Postprison

Figure 8
Youth Authority Release Preprison and Postprison Release
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
−
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
Age
No CDC Terms Any CDC Terms
Pre-CDC Post-CDC
Note: CDC = California Department of Corrections.
rates did not drop to levels found for those who never served a prison term,
but they were about half the level found for the preprison period. It would
appear from these figures that the prison experience had a profound crime
reduction effect for these clearly persistent offenders.
It would also appear from these figures that criminal justice experiences
for these offenders contributed to the overall age–crime relationship shown
in the line for those with “any CDC terms.” The preprison arrest rate
remained high, whereas the postprison rates decreased with age, approach-
ing the rate for those with no prison terms. And, as more and more of the
sample moved from preprison to postprison rates, they drove the overall
age–crime line downward toward the postprison line.
Discussion
This article has taken the stand that persistent offending is not simply
more offending, driven by a greater drive toward criminal behavior. Rather,
it is the failure to stop offending, even in the face of ever-increasing pressure

to do so. For the vast majority of people, including offenders, sanctions

work. Most offenders are not rearrested. Persistent offenders, by definition,
have not responded to whatever sanctions they experienced. They have
resisted the efforts of family, friends, and the law to keep them in line. In
arguing that resistance to sanctions is an extension of resistance to other
forms of social controls and is related to low internal controls as well, this
article supports and extends the self-control arguments previously offered
by Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990; see also Laub & Sampson, 2003).
This article has not addressed the issue of what causes this kind of resis-
tance to social control, but it appears, like low self-control, to arise early in life
for the most persistent offenders. By the time persistent juvenile offenders
have been committed to the CYA, they have accumulated an average of 10 or
more arrests in the few years prior to commitment. To have withstood the pres-
sure behind that many interventions, these young offenders must have been
keenly able to resist social control. These individuals can be seen as major
resisters who are likely to continue resisting well into adulthood. It is not sur-
prising, therefore, that we found them to have long and extensive careers fol-
lowing release from the CYA. These findings are entirely consistent with
previous research on persistent offenders. That research has reported that per-
sistent offenders start offending early in life, continue to offend through ado-
lescence and into adulthood, and reduce their offending slowly over time
(Farrington, 1992, 2003; Mazerolle, Brame, Paternoster, Piquero, & Dean,
2000; Moffitt, 1993; Wolfgang, Thornberry, & Figlio, 1987, in Gomez-Smith
& Piquero, 2005).
Unfortunately, these persistent offenders seem destined to live rather
unstable lives, and this instability complicates the study of differential
patterns of desistance or career trajectories. Internal and external controls
together provide the keel and rudder needed for stability of trajectories.
Without these controls, these offenders drift in and out of crime and in and
out of marriages, jobs, and other social arrangements that might enforce
and reinforce social controls (Haapanen, 1990). This instability was mani-
fested in rather wide variations in criminal behavior. Our results showed
that random samples of 100, 250, or even 500 individuals had markedly dif-
ferent age–crime trajectories.
This instability will make it difficult to identify meaningful differences
in crime trajectories or to distinguish true desistance from a temporary lull.
Career length can only be calculated once true desistance is certain (Brame,
Bushway, & Paternoster, 2003). The caution that desistance cannot be
determined for certain until the death of an individual (Carrington,
Matarazzo, & deSouza, 2005; Farrington, 1992; Maruna, 2001, in Bushway
et al., 2001) may be particularly relevant for these persistent offenders for

whom lulls of relatively long duration may simply be false desistance

(Barnett, Blumstein, & Farrington, 1989).
What do the findings imply for correctional policy if persistent offend-
ers continue to offend even after incarceration? The response to that ques-
tion may not be as bleak as one could imagine. One encouraging finding
was that these offenders did seem to respond, at least to some degree, to
criminal justice interventions. We found that they were arrested less while
under the jurisdiction of the CYA (on parole) than they were immediately
after discharge. We also found that they were arrested at a much lower rate
following their first prison term (if any) than before, controlling for age.
Although the rate of arrest was considerably above zero, the justice system
did have a crime reduction benefit for these persistent offenders. As
Sampson and Laub (2005) point out, desistance is a process, which involves
both quitting crime and establishing alternative ways of life. In this regard,
sanctions may have only incremental effects on overall behavior patterns—
inexorably wearing down these offenders, contributing to (if not driving)
the desistence process. It would appear, at least, that these serious sanctions
contributed to the overall decline in arrest rates by age for these offenders.
Notes
1. Longitudinal self-report studies are relatively expensive and limited in their samples
(Elliott, 1994; Farrington, 1992). Official records, however, are more than simply a way of
measuring criminality. But they seem to tell the same story, suggesting that the kind of social
control discussed here can also occur outside of the criminal justice system, and resistance to
the control attempts by family, friends, and so on may be the same thing.
2. Subsequent criminal justice processes, which may be viewed, in part, as attempts to
determine actual guilt, are even more indicative of intervention. Conviction charges often dis-
tort the “description” of the actual behavior in the interest of intervening in certain ways.
Conviction, and the particular conviction offense, are matters of negotiation. Charges may be
dropped or reduced in favor of a package that balances cost, obtaining any conviction, and
managing an appropriate type and level of intervention.
3. In July 2005, the California Youth Authority (CYA) was merged with the California
Department of Corrections to form the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
The CYA became the Juvenile Justice Division of this new department. For clarity, this article
will use the former name, which was used when the youth in the present study were housed there.
4. The CYA does not routinely gather data on all prior arrests for youth committed to its
care. However, special studies have been conducted where prior record information was gath-
ered (Haapanen & Britton, 2002; Haapanen & Steiner, 2003). In one of these, the average
number of arrest charges for youth entering the CYA in 1998 was 8.9. The average for youth
committed for violent offenses was 8.3 charges each, compared to 10.0 charges each for youth
committed for property offenses.

References
Allerton, R. (1972). Some comments on being a criminal. In D. Petersen & M. Truzzi (Eds.),
Criminal life: Views from the inside (pp. 25-34). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Barnett, A., Blumstein, A., & Farrington, D. (1989). A prospective test of a criminal career
model. Criminology, 27(2), 373-385.
Blokland, A. (2005). Crime over the lifespan: Trajectories of criminal behavior in Dutch
offenders. Leiden: Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement.
Brame, R., Bushway, S., & Paternoster, R. (2003). Examining the prevalence of criminal
desistence. Criminology, 41(2), 423-448.
Bushway, S., Piquero, A., Broidy, L., Cauffman, E., & Mazerolle, P. (2001). An empirical
framework for studying desistance as a process. Criminology, 39(2), 491-515.
Carrington, P., Matarazzo, A., & deSouza, P. (2005). Court careers of a Canadian birth cohort.
Ottawa: Statistics Canada.
Caspi, A., Moffitt, T., Silva, P., Stouthamer-Loeber, M., Krueger, R., & Schmutte, P. (1994).
Are some people crime-prone? Replications of the personality-crime relationship across
countries, genders, races, and methods. Criminology, 32(2), 163-195.
Cernkovich, S., & Giordano, P. (2001). Stability and change in anti-social behavior: The tran-
sition from adolescence to early adulthood. Criminology, 39(2), 371-410.
Cohen, L., & Kluegel, J. (1979). Selecting delinquents for adjudication. Journal of Research
in Crime and Delinquency, 16(1), 143-163.
Elliott, D. (1994). Serious violent offenders: Onset, developmental course, and termination.
Criminology, 32(1), 1-21.
Ezell, M., & Cohen, L. (2005). Desisting from crime: Continuity and change in long-term
crime patterns of serious chronic offenders. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Farrington, D. (1992). Criminal career research in the United Kingdom. British Journal of
Criminology, 32, 521-536.
Farrington, D. (2003). Developmental and life-course criminology: Key theoretical and empir-
ical issues—The 2002 Sutherland Award address. Criminology, 41(2), 221-256.
Gomez-Smith, Z., & Piquero, A. (2005). An examination of adult onset offending. Journal of
Criminal Justice, 33, 515-525.
Gottfredson, M., & Hirschi, T. (1990). A general theory of crime. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press.
Haapanen, R. (1990). Selective incapacitation and the serious offender: A longitudinal study
of criminal career patterns. New York: Springer-Verlag.
Haapanen, R., & Britton, R. (2002). Drug testing for youthful offenders on parole: An exper-
imental study. Criminology and Public Policy, 1, 217-244.
Haapanen, R., & Jesness, C. (1982). Early identification of the chronic offender. Sacramento:
California Youth Authority.
Haapanen, R., & Steiner, H. (2003). Identifying mental health treatment needs among serious
institutionalized delinquents using paper-and-pencil screening instruments: Final report
to the National Institute of Justice. Sacramento: California Youth Authority.
Hagedorn, J. (1994). Homeboys, dope fiends, legits, and new jacks. Criminology, 32(2), 197-219.
Jacobs, B., & Wright, R. (1999). Stick-up, street culture, and offender motivation. Criminology,
37(1), 149-173.
Laub, J., & Sampson, R. (1993). Turning points in the life course: Why change matters to the
study of crime. Criminology, 31(3), 301-326.

Laub, J., & Sampson, R. (2003). Shared beginnings, divergent lives: Delinquent boys to age
70. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Listwan, S. (2001). Personality and criminal behavior: Reconsidering the individual. Unpublished
doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH.
Loeber, R., & Farrington, D. (1998). Never too early, never too late: Risk factors and success-
ful interventions for serious and violent juvenile offenders. Studies on Crime and Crime
Prevention, 7, 7-30.
Mazerolle, P., Brame, R., Paternoster, R., Piquero, A., & Dean, C. (2000). Onset age, persistence,
and offending versatility: Comparisons across gender. Criminology, 38(4), 1143-1172.
Moffitt, T. (1993). Adolescent-limited and life-course persistent antisocial behavior: A devel-
opmental taxonomy. Psychological Review, 100(4), 674-701.
Murray, C., & Cox, L. (1979). Beyond probation: Juvenile corrections and the chronic delin-
quent. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Nagin, D., & Farrington, D. (1992a). The onset and persistence of offending. Criminology,
30(4), 501-523.
Nagin, D., & Farrington, D. (1992b). The stability of criminal potential from childhood to
adulthood. Criminology, 30(2), 235-260.
Nagin, D., & Paternoster, R. (1991). The relationship of past to future delinquency.
Criminology, 29(4), 163-189.
Piquero, A., Brame, R., Mazerolle, P., & Haapanen, R. (2002). Crime in emerging adulthood.
Criminology, 40(1), 137-169.
Richardson, N. (2001). Out of sight, out of mind: Central San Joaquin Valley delinquents and
the California Youth Authority. Sacramento: California Youth Authority.
Robins, L. (1966). Deviant children grown up: A sociological and psychiatric study of socio-
pathic personality. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins.
Sampson, R., & Laub, J. (1993). Crime in the making: Pathways and turning points through
life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Sampson, R., & Laub, J. (2003). Life-course desisters? Trajectories of crime among delin-
quent boys followed to age 70. Criminology, 41(3), 555-592.
Sampson, R., & Laub, J. (2005). A general age-graded theory of crime: Lessons learned and
the future of life-course criminology. In D. P. Farrington (Ed.), Integrated developmental
and life-course theories of offending: Vol. 14. Advances in criminological theory (pp. 165-
182). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
Shannon, L. (1991). Changing patterns of delinquency and crime: A longitudinal study in
Racine. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Shannon, L., McKim, J., Curry, J., & Haffner, L. (1988). Criminal career continuity: Its social
context. New York: Human Sciences Press.
White, J., Moffitt, T., Earls, F., Robins, L., & Silva, P. (1990). How early can we tell?
Predictors of childhood conduct disorder and adolescent delinquency. Criminology, 28(4),
507-534.
Rudy Haapanen is the chief of the Juvenile Research Branch of the California Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation. He received his PhD from the University of California, Davis.
Until the merger of the California Youth Authority (CYA) and the California Department of
Corrections, he was chief of the CYA Research Division. Over the years, his research has
focused on the characteristics of serious juvenile offenders and factors that affect outcomes and
long-term careers. He is currently developing classification systems that incorporate screening

tools for special program needs, assessments of potential institutional violence, and risk of
recidivism. He also continues to study long-term career trajectories for young offenders com-
mitted to state correctional institutions in California.
Lee Britton is a research manager in the Juvenile Research Branch of the California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He received his PhD from the School of Social
Ecology, University of California, Irvine. He has been involved in experimental research on
drug testing for parolees, on the development of juvenile offender classification systems, and
on designing systems for ongoing evaluation of institutional programs for serious juvenile
offenders. Other research interests include criminal justice decision making, including the role
of juries, and long-term career trajectories for juvenile offenders committed to state institutions.
Tim Croisdale is a research specialist in the Juvenile Research Branch of the California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He is completing his PhD at Simon Fraser
University, British Columbia, working on the identification of persistent offenders and the pre-
diction of future levels of crime within this population. Currently, he is working on developing
comprehensive, multifaceted classification systems for youth committed to state institutions in
California.

Haapanen 2007

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Haapanen 2007

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Crime & Delinquency

Keywords: career; persistence; career length; delinquency

O n a conceptual level, persistent criminality and career length go together.

Downloaded from cad.sagepub.com at QUEENS UNIV LIBRARIES on March 6, 2015

Downloaded from cad.sagepub.com at QUEENS UNIV LIBRARIES on March 6, 2015

Intervention, Not Data Collection

Downloaded from cad.sagepub.com at QUEENS UNIV LIBRARIES on March 6, 2015

Correction and Selection

Downloaded from cad.sagepub.com at QUEENS UNIV LIBRARIES on March 6, 2015

Downloaded from cad.sagepub.com at QUEENS UNIV LIBRARIES on March 6, 2015

In both theories, the same characteristics that reduce internal controls on

Downloaded from cad.sagepub.com at QUEENS UNIV LIBRARIES on March 6, 2015

It is possible, of course, that individuals can be resistant to social control and

Persistent Criminality and Career Length

Downloaded from cad.sagepub.com at QUEENS UNIV LIBRARIES on March 6, 2015

Downloaded from cad.sagepub.com at QUEENS UNIV LIBRARIES on March 6, 2015

1988 2,274 2,224 97.8 50 2.2

Total 30,228 29,245 96.8 983 3.2

Downloaded from cad.sagepub.com at QUEENS UNIV LIBRARIES on March 6, 2015

Downloaded from cad.sagepub.com at QUEENS UNIV LIBRARIES on March 6, 2015

Male (n=29,245) Female (n=983)

The importance of persistence as a precursor to later criminal conduct

Downloaded from cad.sagepub.com at QUEENS UNIV LIBRARIES on March 6, 2015

Violent (n=14,457) Property (n=10,276)

Instability of Criminal Behavior

Downloaded from cad.sagepub.com at QUEENS UNIV LIBRARIES on March 6, 2015

Downloaded from cad.sagepub.com at QUEENS UNIV LIBRARIES on March 6, 2015

Downloaded from cad.sagepub.com at QUEENS UNIV LIBRARIES on March 6, 2015

desistence and shorter criminal career lengths for subgroups of offenders.

Criminal Justice Interventions

Downloaded from cad.sagepub.com at QUEENS UNIV LIBRARIES on March 6, 2015

Max=21 (n=17,872) Max=25 (n=11,297)

Downloaded from cad.sagepub.com at QUEENS UNIV LIBRARIES on March 6, 2015

Downloaded from cad.sagepub.com at QUEENS UNIV LIBRARIES on March 6, 2015

Note: CDC = California Department of Corrections.

Downloaded from cad.sagepub.com at QUEENS UNIV LIBRARIES on March 6, 2015

to do so. For the vast majority of people, including offenders, sanctions

Downloaded from cad.sagepub.com at QUEENS UNIV LIBRARIES on March 6, 2015

whom lulls of relatively long duration may simply be false desistance

Downloaded from cad.sagepub.com at QUEENS UNIV LIBRARIES on March 6, 2015

Downloaded from cad.sagepub.com at QUEENS UNIV LIBRARIES on March 6, 2015

Downloaded from cad.sagepub.com at QUEENS UNIV LIBRARIES on March 6, 2015

Downloaded from cad.sagepub.com at QUEENS UNIV LIBRARIES on March 6, 2015

You might also like