ABSTRACT
The recidivist constitutes an interesting minority, since the majority of offenders do cease to become involved with the system for one or other of these reasons. Scientifically speaking, there is no magic number of convictions after which one can assume that the offender is markedly less likely to be redeemable. The most that can be said is that the sharpest increase in the probability of reconviction occurs at the second conviction. So far as adults are concerned, the majority of 'first offenders' do not become 'second offenders', whereas a much larger fraction of second offenders become third offenders. With most minorities, there is a tendency to presume that recidivists are mentally abnormal. A simpler form of the maturation theory is that there is a 'criminal climacteric' somewhere in middle age, when recidivists tend to abandon crime. The introduction of parole means that preventive sentences are now in theory semi-determinate: it is only their maximum duration that is determined.
