ABSTRACT
When studying crime and deviance, if people are who we think they are, if being "bad" in childhood means being "bad" throughout the life-course, this simplifies things for researchers. This chapter reviews the criminal career debate, taking it up to the present. While the main players debated each other mainly from the mid-1980s to the end of that decade, the debate spurred new advancements and work that continues today. Goring discussed the careers of criminals, though seemingly using the term to simply describe the period in which a person remains engaged in crime. The idea of a criminal career is somewhat consistent with the social learning approach. Researchers have noted that dimensions of the criminal career were examined by criminologists in the early 20th century, including the Gluecks in their longitudinal studies in Boston. By 1980 the literature on criminal careers was established enough for Joan Petersilia to craft a 60-page essay in Crime and Justice reviewing it.
