Specialization and the Propensity to Violence

Abstract

The degree to which the propensity to commit violence is distinct from the propensity to commit other nonviolent acts informs theory, research, and practice. This research examines whether there are individualswhotend to specialize in violent versus nonviolent crimes and whether these individuals differ from one another on other measures. Building off prior research, a distributional approach to specialization that examines offenses within individuals' careers was applied to both self-reported and official crime data from a large birth cohort from Dunedin, New Zealand. Whereas analyses of official reports were consistent with previous research in documenting little specialization, analyses using self-reports indicated that individuals differed in their propensities to commit violent crime. Further, individuals with some violent crimes in their offense distribution differ from those with no violent crimes in terms of previous histories of behavior problems and personality. Implications for current theory and future directions are discussed.

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