Offence specialists, specialization, and the criminal career

This paper discusses the existence and prevalence of offence specialists among 499 male inmates at a medium security penitentiary in western Canada. The research used official prison documents.;In keeping with the general theory of crime (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990), it was expected that the specialists would distinguish themselves from generalists on measures of self-control, including: (1) prison infractions; (2) offending behaviour; (3) onset age; and, (4) criminal versatility. The findings indicate that the specialists distinguished themselves on measures of criminal versatility, but none of the other measures consistently offered statistically significant results that were compatible with the general theory of crime.;Overall, there were 176 inmates that distinguished themselves as offence specialists, leading to the conclusions that: (1) offence specialists exist, and in greater numbers than previously found; (2) the coding system performed as expected; (3) the four identified obstacles to the investigation of specialization do have an impact; (4) these offence specialists present a challenge to the general theory of crime; and (5) there is value in the continued study of offence specialists, and offence specialization. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).;Although the offence specialist is believed to be a universally rare entity, four obstacles were identified as exaggerating this rarity: (1) plea-bargaining; (2) the vagaries of charge selection; (3) multiple offences related to a single incident; and, (4) the failure to include phased changes in offence allegiance.