Citation

Vaughn MG, DeLisi M, Beaver KM, Howard MO. J. Forensic Sci. 2008; 53(6): 1387-1392.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, American Society for Testing and Materials, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1556-4029.2008.00873.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

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.