The concept of criminal career, although relatively new, is increasingly being processed in the scientific literature based on whose results we are getting new insights on the reasons for the beginning, persistence and termination of committing criminal offenses. Based on this concept some of the recent criminological theories originated which provide a new view of the perpetrators, as well as the peculiarities of the very crimes. Based on earlier works such as Glueck and Glueck (1930) and Clifford Shaw (1930), criminal career has given the importance of longitudinal studies in the field of criminology. The great contribution of longitudinal research is reflected in the fact that through this kind of research we can identify correlations of various factors that influence the onset, duration and completion of the criminal career. The aim of this study is a analysis of several longitudinal studies that have examined criminal career in order to identify factors that affect the long-term commission of criminal offenses, in other words criminal career that extends beyond adolescence. Identifying predictive factors is of extreme importance for the understanding of the characteristics of long-term criminal career. Furthermore, one of the goals of this paper is to highlight the great potential of longitudinal research and to encourage the implementation of this type of research in Croatia in order to clarify the aforementioned criminological issues in the context of the culture and specificity of our population.