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Toward a Quantitative Typology of Burglars: A Latent Profile Analysis of Career Offenders
Author(s) -
Vaughn Michael G.,
DeLisi Matt,
Beaver Kevin M.,
Howard Matthew O.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of forensic sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.715
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1556-4029
pISSN - 0022-1198
DOI - 10.1111/j.1556-4029.2008.00873.x
Subject(s) - typology , construct (python library) , criminology , latent class model , psychology , sample (material) , offender profiling , social psychology , sociology , computer science , artificial intelligence , chemistry , chromatography , machine learning , anthropology , bayesian network , programming language
Burglary is a serious, costly, and prevalent crime but prior typologies of burglars are mostly speculative and based on qualitative data. Using a sample of 456 adult career criminals, the current study used latent profile analysis to construct a methodologically rigorous quantitative typology. Four classes of burglars emerged: young versatile , vagrant, drug‐oriented , and sexual predators . All groups demonstrated significant involvement in varied forms of crime, but the sexual predator group was the most violent and had the most serious criminal careers. Connections to the criminal career literature are offered and suggestions for further empirical study of offender typologies are discussed.