TY - JOUR
T1 - Patterns of Crime in a Birth Cohort
AU - Collins, Linda M.
AU - Cliff, Norman
AU - Cudeck, Robert A.
AU - McCormick, Douglas J.
AU - Zatkin, Judith L.
N1 - Funding Information:
for allowing them access to the data. Dr. M. Klein made very helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. The research reported here was supported by National Institute of Justice grant #79-NI-AX-0065.
PY - 1983/1/7
Y1 - 1983/1/7
N2 - Most attempts at developing typologies of criminal behavior have not involved empirical research. This paper describes an exploratory empirical approach to identifying patterns in criminal behavior. Two data-reduction techniques, factor analysis and cluster analysis, are applied to the official arrest records of a Danish birth cohort of 28,879 men. Four factors emerged from the factor analysis: GENERAL CRIME, TRAFFIC OFFENSES, WHITE-COLLAR CRIME, and SEX OFFENSES. The cluster analysis revealed GENERAL CRIME and TRAFFIC OFFENSES clusters. A substantial number of offenses are shown by both analyses to be independent of any pattern. The results show good split-sample cross-validation and for the most part are robust across the two analytic approaches.
AB - Most attempts at developing typologies of criminal behavior have not involved empirical research. This paper describes an exploratory empirical approach to identifying patterns in criminal behavior. Two data-reduction techniques, factor analysis and cluster analysis, are applied to the official arrest records of a Danish birth cohort of 28,879 men. Four factors emerged from the factor analysis: GENERAL CRIME, TRAFFIC OFFENSES, WHITE-COLLAR CRIME, and SEX OFFENSES. The cluster analysis revealed GENERAL CRIME and TRAFFIC OFFENSES clusters. A substantial number of offenses are shown by both analyses to be independent of any pattern. The results show good split-sample cross-validation and for the most part are robust across the two analytic approaches.
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U2 - 10.1207/s15327906mbr1803_1
DO - 10.1207/s15327906mbr1803_1
M3 - Article
C2 - 26744915
AN - SCOPUS:84948871786
SN - 0027-3171
VL - 18
SP - 235
EP - 257
JO - Multivariate Behavioral Research
JF - Multivariate Behavioral Research
IS - 3
ER -
