Modelling the Criminal Lifestyle

Book excerpt: This book offers Walters's latest evolution of criminal lifestyle theory. It introduces the concept of criminal thought content to illustrate how the potential interplay between what offenders think and their thought processes can greatly aid our understanding of both crime and criminals. In this new study on criminal behaviour, Walters calls for criminological theory to be placed within a broader scientific context, and provides us with several key models which embrace constructs from numerous important theories including: the general theory of crime, social cognitive and social learning theories, general strain theory, psychopathic personality theories of crime, and labelling theory. Another unique aspect of this work is that it places lifestyle theory within a larger scientific framework, namely, nonlinear dynamical systems theory or chaos. Seven principles from chaos theory are used to explain relationships and processes central to lifestyle theory and Walters uses this to draw conclusions on what affects criminal decision-making and desistance from crime. Highly original and innovative in scope, this book will be useful to practitioners and scholars of criminal justice alike, with chapters focussed on decision-making, assessment, and intervention.