The criminal career approach is an exciting new perspective in criminology that has been greatly stimulated by the US National Academy of Sciences Panel on Criminal Career Research (Blumstein et al. 1986), of which I was privileged to be a member. It is not a criminological theory but a framework within which theories can be proposed and tested. This approach defines a 'criminal career' as the ...

Every society is governed by certain rules (the law), customs, norms and values; and these are intricately crucial to the maintenance of public morality. Invariably, there is a public morality which provides the cement of any human society; the law, especially the criminal law, must regard it as a primary function to reflect and maintain this public morality. Criminal Codes lay down various off...

BACKGROUND There is evidence that offenders consume diets lacking in essential nutrients and this could adversely affect their behaviour. AIMS To test empirically if physiologically adequate intakes of vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids cause a reduction in antisocial behaviour. METHOD Experimental, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomised trial of nutritional supplements on 2...

BACKGROUND There is an increasing probability that the psychiatrist will, willingly or not, come into contact with mentally ill offenders in the course of their practice. There are increasing rates of violence, substance abuse and other psychiatric disorders that are of legal importance. Therefore, the aim of this work was to investigate the rates of different mental disorders in 100 court repo...

Criminality as expressed by self-reported arrests and convictions was studied in a sample of 294 drug--mainly heroin--abusing subjects, 77.6% of whom had been arrested and 57.1% convicted. The majority had more than one arrest or conviction for a variety of crimes. Arrests and convictions for other than drug offences outnumbered the drug offences. Only a minority of the subjects were responsibl...