The Long‐term Predictive Utility of the Base Expectancy Score

The Base Expectancy Score, developed in the early 196Os, continued a tradition of practical behauioural prediction pioneered by Burgess, the Gluecks, Mannheim and Wilkins, and others. We provide a brief historical ouerview of this tradition and of the development of the BE scale, and examine its predictive validity over more than a 25 year period and over a variety of outcome criteria of recent interest to the ‘criminal career’ research paradigm. The scale is found to be remarkably robust over the period and criteria considered.