What is a Habitual Offender?

A habitual criminal offender, also known as a repeat offender, refers to a person who has been
previously convicted of one or more crimes in the past and is currently facing new charges.
Although many habitual offenders tend to commit the same type of crime over and over again, a
person does not necessarily have to commit the same crime in order to be called a repeat or
habitual offender. 

Some common examples of crimes that habitual offenders often commit include:

 Drug crimes (e.g., possession and intent to distribute);

 Burglary;
 Robbery; 
 Instances of petty theft (e.g., shoplifting); 
 Assault or aggravated assault;
 Trespassing; 
 Driving under the influence (“DUI”); and
 Conducting business or selling merchandise without a proper license (e.g., street
vendors). 

What is a Habitual Offender Statute?

To combat the issue and to deter individuals from becoming habitual offenders, many
states have enacted some version of a habitual offender law. This is done with the hope
that it would help curb the rate of repeated criminal activity. 

Depending on the state, a habitual offender law may increase the severity of
punishment that a repeat offender receives. It may also intensify the number of
requirements that a convicted offender must satisfy to complete their probation or parole
period or alter the type of crime that they are charged with (e.g., misdemeanor vs.
felony). 

Again, even though it is not necessary, a habitual offender law may also focus on a
specific type of crime. For instance, if an individual commits and is convicted of enough
prior incidents of misdemeanor petty theft, then the state statute may provide that their
next instance of misdemeanor petty theft will constitute a felony crime. Thus, they may
be issued a prison sentence of up to one year or greater if they are ever convicted of
that crime again.
What Penalties Do Habitual Offenders Face?

The penalties issued during habitual offender sentencing hearings will largely depend
on the type of crime committed and the laws of the jurisdiction prosecuting the case. In
most cases, however, a habitual offender who has committed the same kind of offense
should expect to receive a lengthier prison sentence or supervised probation. 

On the other hand, if the crime is violent in nature or is related to a drug trafficking
conviction, then a defendant can face a prison sentence of at least 25 years to life. 

Some common penalties that a habitual offender may face for a conviction may include:

 Higher criminal fines;

 Longer jail or prison sentences;
 Supervised (as opposed to unsupervised) probation;
 Revocation or suspension of a driver or professional license;
 Intense rehabilitation for substance abuse problems; and/or
 The loss of certain civil liberties, such as the right to vote in an election, to own or possess a
firearm, to serve on a jury, or retain custody of their children. 

In contrast, defendants who commit the same crime, but are first-time offenders, will
typically receive a lighter sentence. Though this will usually depend on the type of crime
that was committed. 

For instance, a first-time offender who is convicted of petty theft charges may only
receive a fine of $1,000, whereas a habitual offender who has been convicted of
committing petty theft several times might receive a fine of $5,000 and possibly, a
prison sentence of one year or longer.

What Other Factors Impact the Kind of Penalty Faced by Habitual Offenders?

Aside from habitual offender laws and a judge’s discretion, there are some other factors
that can impact the kind of penalty that a habitual offender receives. Some other factors
that a court may consider when determining what type of penalty to issue a newly
convicted habitual offender include:

 Whether the case involves the same criminal charges as their last conviction; 
 The length of time between the new offense and their last conviction;
 Whether a habitual offender was already on probation for another crime when the new
offense occurred;
  Whether the crime in question qualifies as a felony, is violent in nature, or often involves
violent circumstances (e.g., drug trafficking);
 Whether a habitual offender has a substance abuse problem or suffers from a mental health
disorder; and/or 
 Whether a habitual offender continues to perpetuate crimes against the same victim or place
of business (e.g., robbing the same jewelry store more than once). 

The occasional criminal only performs the act if the opportunity

occurs in his/her routine of daily life. For example someone is walking
by a car & it happens to be unlocked & the person notices they might
take their car stereo, etc.

Those whose criminal acts were due to external circumstances and

who were driven to commit crimes because of a special passion.

 Most crime committed by amateurs whose acts are unskilled, and

unplanned
 Occasional crime occurs when there is a situational inducement
Frequency of occasional crime varies according to age, cl**** race, and
gender
Occasional criminals have little group support for the crimes

There is a class of occasional criminals, who do not exhibit, or who

exhibit in slighter degrees, the anatomical, physiological, and
psychological characteristics which constitute the type described by
Lombroso as “the criminal man.”

There are occasional criminals who commit the offences characteristic

of habitual criminality, such as homicides, robberies, rapes, etc., so
there are born criminals who sometimes commit crimes out of their
ordinary course.
Occasional criminals, who without any inborn and active tendency to
crime lapse into crime at an early age through the temptation of their
personal condition, and of their physical and social environment, and
who do not lapse into it, or do not relapse, if these temptations
disappear.

Thus they commit those crimes and offences which do not indicate
natural criminality, or else crimes and offences against person or
property, but under personal and social conditions altogether different
from those in which they are committed by born and habitual
criminals.

There is no doubt that, even with the occasional criminal, some of the
causes which lead him into crime belong to the anthropological class;
for external causes would not suffice without individual
predispositions. For instance, during a scarcity or a hard winter, not all
of those who experience privation have recourse to theft, but some
prefer to endure want, however undeserved, without ceasing to be
honest, whilst others are at the utmost driven to beg their food; and
amongst those who yield to the suggestion of crime, some stop short
at simple theft, whilst others go as far as robbery with violence. Of
millions of property and theft related crimes are done by occasional
criminals.

An occasional thief

An individual’s decision to steal is spontaneous, un-planned.

Criminologists suspect that the great majority of economic crimes are
the work of amateur criminals whose decision to steal is spontaneous
and whose acts are unskilled, unplanned, and haphazard. Occasional
property crime occurs when there is an opportunity or situational
inducement to commit crime. Upper-class has the opportunity to
engage in the more lucrative business- related crimes. The lower-class
has opportunity to commit crime and short-run inducements.
Occasional criminals will deny any connection to a criminal life-style
and instead view their transgressions as being out of character.
Whereas with the occasional criminal the moral sense is almost
normal, but inability to realize beforehand the consequences of his act
causes him to yield to external influences.

The forms of occasional criminality, which are determined by these

ordinary temptations, are also determined by age, sex, poverty,
worldly influences, and influences of moral environment, alcoholism,
personal surroundings, and imitation. Tarde has ably demonstrated
the persistent influence of these conditions on the actions of men.

For thefts, again, whilst occasional simple thefts are largely the effect
of social and economical conditions. For slight offences by occasional
criminals, strict indemnification will, on the one hand, avoid the
disadvantages of short terms of imprisonment, and will, on the other
hand, be much more efficacious and sensible than an assured
provision of food and shelter, for a few days or weeks, in the State
prisons.

Occasional criminals or criminaloids, whose crimes are explained

primarily by opportunity, although they too have innate traits that
predispose them to criminality.

Lombroso referenced the insane criminal, the criminaloid, and the

habitual criminal all as “occasional criminals”. His classification of the
insane criminal (idiots, imbeciles, paranoiacs, epileptics, alcoholics,
etc.) came by way of his assertion that this type of criminal was a result
of brain deficiency. Lombroso differentiated the atavistic or born
criminal from the insane criminal through his proposition that the
insane criminal, was not born criminal. Instead, due to the
deficiency/alteration of the brain (which disturbs their moral nature
and subsequently inhibits their ability to discern between right and
wrong) the insane criminal becomes criminal at any point in their life
(Lombroso-Ferrero, 1911, p. 74).

Of the criminaloid, the largest group of occasional criminals, Lombroso

hypothesized that they were only slightly less predisposed to
criminality. He asserted that the opportunity to commit crime and
environmental factors was the most important element in their
etiology and that although they had innate traits and a touch of
degeneracy, their organic tendency was much less than that of the
born criminal.

The Pseudocriminal

Individuals who become criminals by mere accident e.g. killing in self-

defense. These criminals are also called Judicial Criminals.

Criminaloid

These are epileptoids who suffer from a milder form of the disease so
that without adequate cause criminality is not manifested. These are
individuals with weak natures who can be swayed by circumstances to
commit crime. Often showing hesitation before committing crime.

Epileptoid Criminal
Individual suffering from epilepsy.
In short, for occasional criminals who commit slight offences, in
circumstances which show that they are not of a dangerous type, I say,
as I have said already, that reparation of the damage inflicted would
suffice as a defensive measure, without a conditional sentence of
imprisonment.

Professional Criminals
The concept of a professional criminal developed primarily in the United States during the latter
half of the 20th century. It proposed the existence of a population of habitual offenders whose
approach to offending included a degree of organization, repeated offending, and specialism into
certain forms of offending. According to Inciardi (1974, p. 304), the concept of a professional
criminal in the 20th century was inherited from earlier Elizabethan ideas of rogues and
scoundrels. The discussion of professional criminality in Conwell and Sutherland (1956) focuses
initially on the existence of professional thieves in American society. They proposed that just as
in legally acceptable professions there are skill sets and unique abilities that are learned and
passed on to future generations, the same is true for criminal professionals. The activities of
professional thieves were defined broadly in the book The Professional Thief (Sutherland, 1937,
p. 43):
The principal rackets of professional thieves are the cannon (picking pockets), the heel (sneak-
thieving from stores, banks, and offices), the boost (shoplifting), pennyweighting (stealing from
jewelry stores by substitution), hotel prowling (stealing from hotel rooms), the con (confidence
game), some miscellaneous rackets relating in certain respects to the confidence games, laying
paper (passing illegal checks, money orders, and other papers), and the shake (the shakedown of,
or extortion from, persons engaged in or about to engage in illegal acts).
Being a professional thief engaged in these activities required intelligence, stealth, and a degree
of specialist knowledge and training. Careful planning and a total commitment to criminal
behavior as their profession were also significant characteristics. Staats (1977) postulated that the
initial ideas about professional crime had developed into five broad categories of offending
(Staats, 1977, p. 50):
1.

Burglary (safe and house).

2.

Sneak theft (bank, house, shoplifting, pennyweighting, pickpocketing, and lush-working).

3.

Confidence swindling (short con, big con, circus grifting).

4.
Forgery and counterfeiting.
5.

Extortion.
The typology proposed by Staats highlights variations in the types of offending committed and a
variety of associated skills and abilities, while the categories refer to forms of theft that are
dependent on technical skills, quick reflexes, and social skills. The President’s Commission on
Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice (1967) conducted a survey of professional
criminals and found that those who were committed to a life of crime were versatile in terms of
the offending behavior they were engaged in. In a sense, they were generalists who sought any
available opportunities for illegal gain. The commission proposed that the term grifter was a
more appropriate term to use when examining professional thieves. Various definitions of a
grifter have been developed. Sutherland (1944, 1949) uses the term grift interchangeably
with theft. In 1962 the California Board of Corrections produced a more detailed description of
the term grifter in their dictionary of criminal language:
[S]mall time gambler or con man: one who lives without working but does not commit crimes
which usually result in arrest
Research into grifting and the activities of con artists by Maurer (1940), Schur (1957), and
Gasser (1963) detail not only the crimes committed by offenders, but also the various strategies
for avoiding detection or prosecution. In Maurer’s book The Big Con: The Story of the
Confidence Man (1940, p. 108), the activities of con artists are discussed as is their perceptions
of victims.
Big time confidence games are in reality only carefully rehearsed plays in which every member
of the cast except the mark knows his part perfectly
This observation is echoed by Gasser (1963, p. 47):
The controlling factor in all true confidence schemes is the way in which the victim is involved.
True confidence games always make use of the avarice and dishonesty of the victim. Their
common element is showing the victim how to make money, or gain some other advantage of his
dishonesty. A true confidence game leaves no innocent victim.

The practice of swindling and forgery and the perpetration of various fraudulent schemes which
prey upon the victim’s innocence, ignorance, or gullibility are not classified as confidence.

Professional Criminals

               crimes committed by persons for whom criminally punishable acts are

a permanent occupation and the primary source of money. Persons who
engage in professional crime have the skills and means necessary for criminal
activity and specialize in some particular type of crime, such as theft or
swindling. They are naturally good at what they do, smart enough to be
slightly harder to catch, enough to make profit of it.  Professional crime has its
own and customs. It includes Assassins, drug mafia, robbers, con artists,
terrorists etc

“He reminds me of the man who murdered both his parents, and then when
the sentence was about to be pronounced, pleaded for mercy on the grounds
that he was orphan.”

Abraham Lincoln

      Rememberable names of evil but incredible professional criminals include

Usama Bin Ladin, Aldrich Ames, Karpis gang, Bonnie and Clyde, John
Herbert Dillinger and a lot more. Certain factors explains that the professional
criminal is differentiated from the occasional criminal, the amateur criminal,
and the unskilled criminal. Factors includes,

 The pursuit of crime as a regular normal occupation

 The development of skilled techniques

 Careful planning and Status among criminals

      Professionalisation  extends beyond the execution of a crime. It involves

prior location of spots and prior preparation for escaping punishment in case
of the detection of crime. Arrangements are made in advance for bail, legal
service, and fixing the case. It is in these advance arrangements, quite as much
as in the technique of executing the crime, that professionalisation is found.

For example, Committing robbery in a professional way involves finding a

person carrying a good amount of money, ornaments, jewels, etc., locating a
place for the holdup, planning the hold-up, and executing the job. Generally
speaking, a professional crime is committed in a non-violent way, though
sometimes it involves violence too.

The man who is admired for the ingenuity of his larceny is almost always
rediscovering some earlier form of fraud. The basic forms are all known, have
all been practiced. The manners of capitalism improve. The morals may not.