recidivist

noun

1. One who falls back into prior habits, especially criminal habits.

   “This specimen was of English parentage, was a professional burglar, a confirmed recidivist, and—since he habitually carried firearms—a potential homicide.”

   “Persistent recidivists are "accidentally" left on the next habitable world. This practice of abandoning criminals on other people's planets is a point of friction between the quarians and the systems they pass through. Captains rarely have another choice; with space and resources at a premium, supporting a non-productive prison population is not an option.”

adj

1. Tending to fall back into prior habits, especially criminal habits.

   “To return to Macbeth, I should like to note another psychological intuition of [William] Shakespeare’s, which is that women commit fewer crimes than men; but when they commit them they are more cruel and more obstinately recidivist than men. Lady Macbeth, for example, is more inhumanly ferocious than her husband.”

   “Court programs, a comparatively recent innovation in the rehabilitation of drunkenness offenders, originally stemmed from the interest of individual judges and magistrates concerned about the treadmill of waste among recidivist alcoholics.”

   “Although there is no single factor underlying aggressive behavior in children, my own 30-plus years looking into the relationship between excessive parental discipline and delinquency has convinced me that the violent, recidivist, male juvenile delinquent who was not raised on the belt, board, cord, or fist is nonexistent.”