Measuring Long Term Individual Trajectories of Offending Using Multiple Methods |
| |
Authors: | Shawn D Bushway Gary Sweeten Paul Nieuwbeerta |
| |
Institution: | (1) School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany, Albany, NY, USA;(2) School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, USA;(3) Department of Criminology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands;(4) The Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR), Amsterdam, The Netherlands;(5) Department of Sociology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands |
| |
Abstract: | Criminal career researchers and developmental criminologists have identified describing individual trajectories of offending
over time as a key research question. In response, recently various statistical methods have been developed and used to describe
individual offending patterns over the life-course. Two approaches that are prominent in the current literature are standard
growth curve modeling (GCM) and group-based trajectory models (GTM). The goal of this paper is to explore ways in which these
different models with different sets of assumptions, do in fact lead to different outcomes on individual trajectories. Using
a particularly rich dataset, the criminal career and life-course study, we estimate a unique trajectory for each individual
in the sample using the GCM and GTM. We also estimate separate trajectories for each individual directly using the long time
series. We then compare these three separate trajectories for each individual. We find that the average trajectories obtained
from the different approaches match each other. However, for any given individual, these approaches tell very different stories.
For example, each method identifies a rather different set of individuals as desistors. This comparison highlights the strengths
and weaknesses of each approach, and more broadly, it reveals the uncertainty involved with measuring long term patterns of
change in latent propensity to commit crimes.
|
| |
Keywords: | Trajectories Growth curves Life course Desistance |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|