ABSTRACT
The issue of criminal versatility has been in the spotlight of criminological research for several decades now. “Criminal versatility” refers to the phenomenon in which repeat offending by a given offender takes many forms, such as drug dealing, theft, assault, or sex offending. Conversely, “crime specialization” refers to the phenomenon in which repeat offending by a given offender is limited to a single form, such as sex offending. At first glance, criminal versatility and crime specialization appear to be two phenomena at the opposite end of a continuum. In other words, some offenders are versatile and others tend to specialize in a particular crime type. Over the years, criminological research has typically taken the form of longitudinal analysis of the sequence of offending, to determine whether offenders are versatile or specialists, and whether these patterns vary across offender type. These research questions have generated a plethora of empirical research dating back to the early 1970s.
