THE COMPLEXITY OF CRIMINAL CAREERS - BETWEEN THE PRESENT AND THE PAST

Abstract

The concept of criminal careers has always intrigued the scientific and professional public, although there is not much available research on this topic in the countries of the Western Balkans. A detailed interpretation of the term requires a multidisciplinary approach, the cooperation of experts of various profiles and the analysis of available regional and international literature. Professionals agree that a lot of time and research is needed in order to better understand and explain the concept, specifics, causes and implications of criminal careers. The beginning, duration and end of criminal careers are determined by the personal characteristics and experiences of each individual, which makes their prediction and prevention even more difficult.
Each perpetrator of a criminal offense has specific characteristics, which are reflected, among other things, in gender, age, personality structure, quality of family relationships, experiences from early childhood, characteristics of the environment he comes from, socio-economic status and prognostication of future behavior. The relationship between individual differences and criminal careers is crucial, and considering the fact that personality exploration is a constant process, there will always be something "unfathomable" that even the people who commit these acts are often not aware of. There is no universal definition of the concept of criminal careers, and practitioners and theorists around the world emphasize that it is necessary to carry out further qualitative and quantitative research on this topic.