The Criminal Lifestyle by Walters Glenn D.;

Author:Walters, Glenn D.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1598381
Publisher: SAGE Publications, Incorporated
Published: 1990-01-06T00:00:00+00:00

Early Criminal Stage

The early criminal stage extends from age 18 up through the mid- to late twenties. In entering the early criminal stage, the individual has made the decision to continue acting in ways that are more indicative of an adolescent level of adjustment than an adult one (Walters & White, 1989b). As we progress through this and later stages of criminal development, we notice that the number of subjects declines as a result of various attrition, selection, and mortality factors. Some persons select themselves out of the lifestyle process (see Greenwood & Zimring, 1985), while others are selected out by external factors like death and serious injury. Blumstein and Cohen (1987), for instance, observed a mild to moderate level of criminal attrition in the 20 to 30 age group, a span that covers much of the early stage of criminal development. A career line of criminality also begins to surface during this period of lifestyle development due in part to the fact that the offender finds himself in contact with new criminal associates, principally through confinement in jail or prison, and learns new criminal techniques while acquiring veteran status in the criminal world (Gibbs & Shelly, 1982).

One change that we see during the early criminal stage is that while the number of crimes decrease, the severity of individual offenses climbs. Langan and Farrington (1983) report that property crimes committed by adults were more serious than crimes committed by juveniles in terms of the value of the property stolen. Petersilia et al. (1978) and West and Farrington (1977) both found an increase in violent offenses as subjects moved from adolescence to adulthood. There is also a shift in the motivation for crime with passage into the early criminal stage of lifestyle development. Results from the Rand study (Petersilia et al., 1978) reveal that thrill-seeking, status acquisition, and peer acceptance decline, and the desire for money as a means to secure drugs and non-essential material goods expands as recidivistic offenders advance from a pre-criminal to an early criminal stage of development. The evolving life decision to lose in dramatic and destructive ways also begins to grow and expand into a self-reinforcing pattern of negative behavior as one moves through the early stage of criminal development.

Case History 5.2 demonstrates the changing motives of the early criminal. The subject of this case history, Art, is bright and articulate, yet he lacks the persistence to put these abilities to good use. Rather than move forward with his life, he has decided to remain at an adolescent stage of personal, social, and emotional development. Though Art’s expressed motivation for crime may center more on greed and laziness than excitement and pleasure, he finds himself in the same negative situations as did Eric. Hence, delayed development and an ever-widening spiral of negative, self-destructive behavior characterize the criminal functioning at an early stage of lifestyle development.

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