Psychological Inertia Revisited: Replicating and Extending the Differential Effect of Proactive and Reactive Criminal Thinking on Crime Continuity

Measures of proactive and reactive criminal thinking were evaluated as putative mediators of the past crime?future crime relationship in a group of 1,354 adjudicated delinquents. Analyses performed on total offending variety scores and aggressive offending frequency scores revealed that reactive but not proactive criminal thinking mediated the past crime?future crime relationship. As in previous studies, proactive criminal thinking failed to correlate with prior criminal offending. These results have theoretical implications for continued development of the criminal thinking-mediated moral and control models of criminal lifestyle development and practical implications for effective treatment, management, and prevention of serious criminality.