Criminal Trajectories in Organized Crime

Not your average biker; criminal careers of members of Dutch outlaw motorcycle gangs

“…The average age of onset for these organized crime offenders was 27. In an extended follow up study, Van Koppen et al (2010b) compared the criminal careers of organized crime offenders to that of general offenders and found both groups to experience the onset of their criminal careers in their mid-twenties. The main difference between organized crime offenders and general offenders appeared to be the seriousness and duration of their offending.…”

New frontiers in criminal careers research, 2000–2011: A state-of-the-art review

“…Several studies have found four latent classes including: a low-rate, moderate-rate, high-rate adolescence-peak, and high-rate adult-peak (Ward et al, 2010), early starters, adult-onset offenders, no prior criminal history, and persistent offenders (van Koppen, de Poot, Kleeman, & Nieuwbeerta, 2010), rare, low chronic, low-rising, and high chronic (Colman, Kim, Mitchell-Herzfeld, & Shady, 2009), as well as nonoffenders, late-onset, adolescence-limited, and persistent (Farrington, Ttofi, & Coid, 2009). Other research reported five latent groups: gradual declining, moderate declining, low, late increasing, gradual increase, late declining, and low offending/low use (Sullivan & Hamilton, 2007); low, moderate, childhood limited, adolescent onset, and early onset/ persistent (Roisman et al, 2010); and in a major criminal careers initiative of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and the MacArthur Foundation, persistent, three levels of desisting groups, and a very-low/non-offending group (Mulvey et al, 2010;Mulvey, 2011).…”

Pathways into organized crime: comparing founders and joiners

“…Therefore it is important to understand risk-factors and turning points in most cases are 'two sides of the same coin' and thus some variables in the current study are not mutually exclusive. Age of criminal onset was found to range from childhood to adulthood which indicates support for Van Koppen et al (2009) OC offender trajectories. However, criminal onset was not significantly associated with age at OC engagement, and mean ages of OC engagement differed minimally across criminal onset age periods, suggesting that other factors are significant in OC engagement, beyond the predictability of criminal onset.…”

“…Research on OC offender trajectories further supports OC offenders cannot be standardised as a group. Van Koppen et al (2009) studied 854 OC offenders via a semi-parametric group model and found four criminal trajectories: adult-onset offenders (40%), adolescent 'persisters' (30%), no previous criminal record group (19%), and early starters (11%) who reflect the typical age-crime curve; among subgroups, 'nodal offenders' were disproportionately amongst the early starters and adolescent 'persisters '. Van Koppen et al (2009) state the refutation of the age-crime curve for OC offenders reflects the unique processes involved in OC engagement.…”

“…In a similar fashion the current study analysed the differences amongst OC criminals who form a criminal operation ('founders') and those who join ('joiners'). It is assumed different engagement pathways and processes will be prevalent for both groups, as inferred by differences found in the trajectory studies of OC offenders (Van Koppen et al 2009).…”