Abstract Prospective longitudinal studies and group-based trajectory modelling techniques have identified distinct offending trajectories which are concealed by differentially contributing to the whole population age-crime curve. Previous longitudinal studies in England and Wales have typical feature utilizing small sample sizes of males born in the 1950s. Utilizing linked administrative crime and education data, we report a retrospective cohort study of offending patterns in a near-whole population-representative mixed-gender sample of nearly 1.5 million offenders born in England and Wales between 1985 and 1999 whose offending behaviours were followed from the age of 10 to 32 for the oldest individuals in the cohort until 2017. Using latent class analysis, we established five offending trajectories, including life-course persistent, adolescent-limited and adult-onset typologies. Prospective prediction of trajectory group membership may help policymakers and practitioners to allocate resources effectively to reduce offending.
Dickson et al. (Fri,) studied this question.