ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a continuum of ideal types of specialist vs. generalist offenders and the rationality of Sam Goodman's criminal activity. It discusses how Sam's experience suggests support for themes from labeling theory, as he describes the effects of labeling and doing time on his opportunity structures, sense of self, attitudes, and behavior. The chapter addresses themes of continuity and change in crime across the life course, and detail some lessons Sam's experience and social world teach about criminal careers and social worlds. It describes a critical reading of theories emphasizing developmental damage as the major cause of persistent offending, especially Moffitt's two-path theory of adolescent limited vs. life-course-persistent offenders. The chapter focuses on the material in Confessions to suggest the following points for broadening our understanding of criminal careers and the criminal landscape, and as a corrective against the overgeneralization of stable criminal propensity theories like Moffitt's developmental perspective.
