Compare methods

	Group-Based Trajectory Model	Criminal Career Paradigm
Field	Criminology	Criminology
Family	Regression model	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1993	1986
Originator	Daniel S. Nagin & Kenneth C. Land	Alfred Blumstein, Jacqueline Cohen, Jeffrey Roth & Christy Visher
Type	Finite-mixture model of longitudinal developmental trajectories	Conceptual framework for decomposing offending over the life course
Seminal source	Nagin, D. S., & Land, K. C. (1993). Age, criminal careers, and population heterogeneity: Specification and estimation of a nonparametric, mixed Poisson model. Criminology, 31(3), 327–362.	Blumstein, A., Cohen, J., Roth, J. A., & Visher, C. A. (Eds.). (1986). Criminal Careers and 'Career Criminals' (Vols. 1–2). National Academy Press. ISBN: 9780309036887
Aliases	GBTM, Group-Based Modeling of Development, Nagin Trajectory Model, Semiparametric Group-Based Modeling	Criminal Careers Framework, Career Criminal Paradigm, Offending Career Approach, Blumstein Criminal Career Model
Related	4	4
Summary	Group-based trajectory modeling (GBTM) is a finite-mixture method that identifies clusters of individuals who follow similar developmental paths of a behavior — most famously offending — over age or time. Introduced to criminology by Daniel Nagin and Kenneth Land in 1993, it replaces the assumption of a single average trajectory with a small number of distinct latent groups, each described by its own polynomial curve and its share of the population.	The criminal career paradigm is a framework for studying offending as a longitudinal sequence in an individual's life rather than as undifferentiated aggregate crime. Codified by Blumstein, Cohen, Roth, and Visher in the 1986 National Academy of Sciences report, it decomposes crime into distinct dimensions — whether someone offends (participation), how often active offenders offend (frequency, λ), and the onset, seriousness, and duration of the career — each potentially with different causes.