s old will be SHOs. Hawkins 10A profile of a Serious Habitual Offender was collected from data collected and analyzed by the Reagan Administration team at the U.S. Department of Justice in the 1980s presents a graphic portrait of the serious habitual offender: The typical SHO is male, 15 years and six months old. He has been arrested 11 to 14 times, exclusive of status offenses, and five times for felonies. He comes from a dysfunctional family; and in 46 percent of cases, at least one of his parents also has an arrest history. He has received long-term and continuing socialservices from as many as six different community service agencies, including family, youth, mental health, social services, school, juvenile,or police authorities, and continues to drain these resources for years before he is finally incarcerated as a career criminal.The typical SHO's family history follows a classic pattern of social pathologies: 53 percent of his siblings also have a history of arrest; and in 59 percent of these cases, there is no father figure in the home. The absence of a father is particularly destructive for boys; only 2 percent of SHOs are female. Furthermore, 68 percent of these offenders have committed crimes of violence, 15 percent have a history of committing sex crimes, and 51 percent have a reported missing or runaway record.If a broken family characterized by physical or sexual abuse is an early indicator of criminal behavior, then virtually all of these serious habitual offenders fit this category. These findings are consistent with the Heritage Foundation's widely reported analysis of the true root causes of violent crime, particularly the crimogenic conditions associated withbroken or dysfunctional families. (10)Hawkins 11 Recent studies show that illegal drug use among the young is on the rise and a significant majority of all present day SHOs -"Super Predators"- use or sell illegal drugs an...
