The effectiveness of various predictors of criminal careers

Data accumulated from a long term follow up of a sample of normal boys is utilised to test the value of social background factors as predictors of a delinquency career extending into adult life. Classroom behaviour and criminality in the family are found to be effective predictors. A search was made for factors that might distinguish between persisting recidivists and those whose conviction careers terminate after the 19th birthday. Apart from having fewer juvenile convictions, “temporary” recidivists were less likely to have come from criminal families or, at age 18, to display the social habits and attitudes typical of the delinquent section of the population. Assessments of “antisociality”, based upon interview assessments at age 18, proved as predictive of reconvictions as official conviction history or self‐reported delinquency scores. It was concluded that youths' reported social habits are important indicators in the prognosis of a criminal career. Latecomers to crime, convicted for the first time for offences after the 19th birthday, did not share the early background adversities found among other delinquents, but behavioural deviations were evident among them from an early age.