Abstract
One of the most important theoretical developments of the last 20 years is Moffitt’s (1993) developmental taxonomy, which articulates a three-part typology of individuals. Abstainers are persons who do not engage in antisocial behavior. Adolescence-limited offenders are persons who engage in deviance briefly during their adolescence and life-course-persistent offenders were those who display antisocial conduct across life. In the taxonomy, abstainers and life-course-persistent offenders are pathological in statistical terms and represent about 5% to 10% of a population. Conversely, adolescence-limited offenders are normative in statistical terms and represent the remainder of a population. The taxonomy can be best understood as a heuristic device to understand highly prosocial individuals, mostly prosocial individuals who dabble in antisocial conduct in various ways, and extremely antisocial individuals who rarely dabble in prosocial conduct. Although the developmental taxonomy has received extensive empirical attention, it is at times taken too literally and held to a pure typological argument that the theory frankly never made (see Moffitt, 2007, on this critique). The basic premise of the taxonomy has been supported by large-scale epidemiological studies (Vaughn, DeLisi, et al., 2011; Vaughn, Fu, et al., 2011), and it is understood that within normative and pathological types of offenders, there is natural variance.
The articles in this issue of the International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology implicitly and at times explicitly make clear that there are people who are mostly nonoffenders, many people who are minor offenders, and a smattering of individuals who are very severe offenders. True to its mission as an international journal, these studies contain data on offenders from across the globe, including Canada, China, the Czech Republic, Sweden, The Netherlands, and the United States of America. The authors rely on an interesting mix of conceptual frameworks, including the criminal career paradigm (Carlsson), psychopathy and sexual deviance (Looman, Morphett, and Abracen), neuroandrogenic theory (Ellis and Das), the cycle of violence and the role of trait anxiety (Jencks and Burton), treatment motivation (Van der Helm, Wissink, De Jongh, and Stams), the phenomenology of group therapy (Řezáč, Klečková, and Vaculík), and conversations between prisoners and counselors (Guo Jing-ying). There is something for every criminologist in this issue.
Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, the studies in this issue shed light on the constructs and the situational dynamics that relate to various types of offending. Overall, these studies present a range of environmental factors that moderate and at times attenuate an individual’s risk for continued offending. Individuals who display the most serious risk profiles, and who are the most consistent with the life-course-persistent prototype are particularly well represented in this issue. These studies show that once a criminal career has gained a certain amount of momentum, it is very difficult for offenders to “go back” due to perceived or experienced failure to engage in conventional behaviors. For other offenders, the degree of antisocial conditions and behaviors are so acute (e.g., rape, child molestation, psychopathy, paraphilias) that there should be no expectation of desistance. In terms of correctional treatment and practice, the qualitative approaches in this issue highlight that an offender’s potential transformation to nonoffender is a complex, self-reflexive process.
In the end, none of the articles in the current issue of the International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology are direct tests of Moffitt’s developmental taxonomy. But all of the articles, in their own way, touch on factors that relate to the three prototypes.