The notion of criminal character—indicative of an offender unresponsive to rehabilitative efforts, largely unamenable to treatment, primed for recidivism, and committed to a criminal or delinquent lifestyle—has an uneven history in criminology and criminal justice. Despite tangential efforts to apply criminal character considerations to delinquency, we are unaware of any study that has empirically employed the concept of criminal character among justice-system involved youth. Here, we examine the similarities and differences among a large cohort of serious delinquent offenders, some of whom correctional staff assessed as having “criminal character.” Youth with criminal character had more extensive delinquent history, adverse childhood experiences, psychopathology, and institutional and violent misconduct while confined in state juvenile correctional facilities and had significant associations with institutional and violent misconduct despite controls for 29 covariates. However, sensitivity analyses indicated the results were sensitive to specification of the dependent variable (e.g., null associations with dichotomous measures of misconduct) and revealed period effects (e.g., null associations for more recently placed youth). Our models show the potential pitfalls from using administrative measures of criminological and forensic concepts and we offer guidance for measurement development in this area.

犯罪特征的概念——表明罪犯对改造努力没有反应，基本上无法接受治疗，准备再犯，并致力于犯罪或违法的生活方式——在犯罪学和刑事司法方面有着不平衡的历史。尽管在将犯罪性格考虑应用于犯罪方面做出了切切的努力，但我们不知道有任何研究在涉及司法系统的青年中经验性地采用了犯罪性格的概念。在这里，我们研究了大量严重违法者之间的异同，其中一些惩教人员被评估为具有“犯罪特征”。具有犯罪特征的青少年有更广泛的犯罪历史、不良的童年经历、精神病理学、尽管对 29 个协变量进行了控制，但被关押在州立少年惩教设施中的机构和暴力不当行为与机构和暴力不当行为有显着关联。然而，敏感性分析表明结果对因变量的规范敏感（例如，与不端行为的二分法测量的无效关联）并揭示了时期效应（例如，最近安置的青年的无效关联）。我们的模型显示了使用犯罪学和法医概念的行政措施的潜在缺陷，我们为该领域的测量发展提供指导。敏感性分析表明结果对因变量的规范敏感（例如，与不端行为的二分法测量的零关联）并揭示了时期效应（例如，最近安置的青年的零关联）。我们的模型显示了使用犯罪学和法医概念的行政措施的潜在缺陷，我们为该领域的测量发展提供指导。敏感性分析表明结果对因变量的规范敏感（例如，与不端行为的二分法测量的零关联）并揭示了时期效应（例如，最近安置的青年的零关联）。我们的模型显示了使用犯罪学和法医概念的行政措施的潜在缺陷，我们为该领域的测量发展提供指导。