ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to review what is known about human development and criminal careers. The criminal career approach is essentially concerned with human development over time. Since the pioneering research of J. Blumstein and J. Cohen, much criminal career research has been concerned to estimate the individual offending frequency of active offenders during their criminal. Criminal career research on onset using official records generally shows a peak age of onset between 13 and 16. The individual offending frequency cannot be estimated from aggregate date simply by dividing the number of offences at each age by the number of arrested or convicted persons at each age, because some persons who have embarked on a criminal career may not sustain an official record at a particular age. R. Loeber and M. Stouthamer-Loeber found that poor parental supervision or monitoring, erratic or harsh parental discipline, parental disharmony, parental rejection of the child, and low parental involvement with the child were all important predictors.
