An examination of developmental patterns of chronic offending from self-report records and official data: Evidence from the Pittsburgh Girls Study (PGS)

Abstract

Purpose: The analysis of criminal career dimensions has generated a large knowledge base. Unfortunately, the lion's share of this work has been undertaken with males. Methods: The current study seeks to build on the small (but growing) body of research on female offending patterns by examining offending trajectories in general, and chronic offending in particular, among 2450 participants from the Pittsburgh Girls Study (PGS). An important feature of our work is a comparison of both official and self-reported measures of offending. Results: The results indicate that there is some degree of concordance between self-reported and official offending trajectories and there is evidence of an overlap among those identified as chronic offenders from a variety of operationalizations of chronic offending. Conclusions: The study limitations and directions for future research are also discussed.