A national population based examination of the association between age-versatility trajectories and recidivism rates

Purpose To compare theoretical explanations of the age-versatility curve including the hypotheses of: self-control theory stating that versatility is followed by specialization; taxonomic theory stating that adolescent-limited offenders are specialists and life-course offenders are versatile and orthogenetic theory stating that specialization and versatility are present in a large number of offender groups. Methods These explanations were tested with Israeli national population-based data on all first and subsequent juvenile offenders (n = 17,176) with 248,114 registered police contacts from 1996 to 2008. Results Semi-parametric group-based modeling identified two trajectory-groups that characterized the age-versatility curve of police contacts before first conviction. The trajectory-groups were labeled as high-stable versatility (n = 2,447; 14.2%), and low-stable versatility (n = 14,729; 85.8%). After controlling for 19 documented demographic, familial, and criminogenic risk factors, Cox regression showed that juvenile offenders who assumed a trajectory of high-stable versatility were at increased risk of recidivism compared to offenders who assumed a trajectory of low-stable versatility. Conclusions These results partially adhere with taxonomic theory than the remaining theories and indicate that assuming a trajectory of elevated pre-conviction versatility increases the risk of recidivism.