Life‐course Trajectories of Different Types of Offenders*

The point of departure for this paper is Nagin and Land (1993), who identified four distinctive offending trajectories in a sample of 403 British males—a group without any convictions, “adolescence‐limiteds,”“high‐level chronics,” and “low‐level chronics.” We build upon that study with a detailed analysis of the distinguishing individual characteristics, behaviors, and social circumstances from ages 10 through 32 of these four groups. The most salient findings concern the adolescence‐limiteds. By age 32 the work records of the adolescence‐limiteds were indistinguishable from the never‐convicted and substantially better than those of the chronic offenders. The adolescence‐limiteds also seem to have established better relationships with their spouses than the chronics. The seeming reformation of the adolescence‐limiteds, however, was less than complete. They continued to drink heavily and use drugs, get into fights, and commit criminal acts (according to self‐reports).