Marc OUIMET ET Marc LEBLANC, “Life events in the course of the adult criminal career”. Un article publié dans la revue Criminal Behavior and Mental Health

“Life events in the course of the adult criminal career” (1993)
Introduction

Une édition électronique réalisée à partir de l'article de Marc OUIMET ET Marc LEBLANC, “Life events in the course of the adult criminal career”. Un article publié dans la revue Criminal Behavior and Mental Health, vol. 6, no 1, janvier 1993, pp. 75-97. [Autorisation accordée par l'auteur le 11 septembre 2006]

Introduction

During the past twenty years or so, prominent among explanations of delinquent behavior have been a number of interesting ideas concerning the initiation of a criminal career. The psychologists focus mainly on the criminal personality, sociologists on delinquent sub-cultures and criminologists on social control and factors linked with the decision to act out. Few studies, however, have dealt with the factors that cause offenders to continue or to stop their criminal careers (Loeber and LeBlanc, 1990). This imbalance in the research efforts is surprising since there is no reason to believe that the factors explaining the onset of delinquent behavior are the same as those explaining the continuation or termination of the criminal career. To help fill this void, the present study looks at the impact of a certain number of life experiences and the subject's age on the continuation of criminal activity during adult life. These experiences concern family and occupational situations as well as the consumption of illicit drugs. The period studied are the years between eighteen, the age of majority, and the early thirties.