Understanding offense specialization and versatility: A reapplication of the rational choice perspective

An understanding of offender specialization and versatility offers benefit to both criminal justice policy and theoretical foundations. The majority of research examining offending specialization/versatility, however, sought to inform crime policy. Accordingly, there was little theoretical insight as to why individuals might engage in more specialized offending, or instead, diversify in their criminal participation. An earlier application of rational choice theory to the offending specialization - versatility issue was premised on the idea that the theory inherently predicted specialization in offending. Other interpretations offered it as a heuristic tool for understanding both crime specialization and versatility. The findings from a series of logistic regression techniques on a national level probation sample supported rational choice predictions about successive tendencies in offending participation that fulfill likely offender needs.