The life course approach to the study of criminal careers has achieved a prominent place in criminology. Life course researchers have identified several distinct patterns in criminal offending and provided several provocative explanations to account for them. Noticeably lacking in the study of life course criminology, however, is any recognition of white-collar offenders. The typical whitecollar offender greatly differs from the typical street offender and does not appear to fit into the proposed explanations of life course offending patterns. Recently, some scholars have applied the techniques and terminology of the criminal career perspective to white-collar offending. This article reviews the current state of developmental theories as they apply to life course offending patterns, summarizes what is known about the intersection of white-collar crime and criminal careers, and suggests ways in which the current theoretical understandings of crime over the life course can be modified to account for white-collar crime patterns.
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