| Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools. |
The Gottfredson–Hirschi Critiques RevisitedReconciling Self-Control Theory, Criminal Careers, and Career CriminalsIowa State University, Ames, delisi{at}iastate.edu
University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Revisiting Gottfredson and Hirschi's critiques of criminal career research, the current study views low self-control as being analogous to criminal propensity and examines its predictive validity of career criminality among 723 incarcerated delinquent youths. Four key findings emerged. Compared to noncareer offenders, career criminals had significantly lower levels of self-control. Second, youths scoring one standard deviation above the mean on the Self-Control Scale had an odds ratio of 5.36 of becoming a career criminal. Third, self-control predicted career criminal membership with receiver operator characteristic-area under the curve sensitivity accuracies between 74% and 87%, suggesting that self-control is a potentially useful screening device for chronic criminality. Fourth, low self-control was overwhelmingly the strongest predictor of career criminality and far exceeded the impact of age, race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, mental illness, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder diagnosis, and trauma experience. Further integration between self-control and criminal career research is urged.
Key Words: self-control • career criminal • criminal careers • delinquency • violence
This version was published on October
1, 2008 International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, Vol. 52, No. 5,
520-537 (2008) This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
 |
|
Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
