This book analyzes newly collected data on crime and social development up to age 70 for 500 men who were remanded to reform school in the 1940s. Born in Boston in the late 1920s and early 1930s, these men were the subjects of the classic study Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency by Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck (1950). Updating their lives at the close of the twentieth century, and connecting their adult experiences to childhood, this book is arguably the longest longitudinal study of age, crime, and the life course to date. John Laub and Robert Sampson's long-term data, combined with in-depth interviews, defy the conventional wisdom that links individual traits such as poor verbal skills, limited self-control, and difficult temperament to long-term trajectories of offending. The authors reject the idea of categorizing offenders to reveal etiologies of offending--rather, they connect variability in behavior to social context. They find that men who desisted from crime were rooted in structural routines and had strong social ties to family and community. By uniting life-history narratives with rigorous data analysis, the authors shed new light on long-term trajectories of crime and current policies of crime control. Table of Contents: Acknowledgments 1. Diverging Pathways of Troubled Boys 2. Persistence or Desistance? 3. Explaining the Life Course of Crime 4. Finding the Men 5. Long-Term Trajectories of Crime 6. Why Some Offenders Stop 7. Why Some Offenders Persist 8. Zigzag Criminal Careers 9. Modeling Change in Crime 10. Rethinking Lives in and out of Crime Notes References Index The accounts of individuals are quite riveting, and the book can be recommended strongly purely for the stories provided about diverse lives. However, the book is much, much more than that in terms of the serious challenge that the authors' findings and ideas present to some of the leading contemporary theories of both crime and development. A highly original and scholarly contribution of the highest quality. --Sir Michael Rutter, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London ttitleShared Beginnings, Divergent Lives is an extraordinary work which shows the deep insights gained by studying the whole life course, beginning in childhood and ending in later life. With access to a rare data archive, the authors provide compelling evidence on the remarkably varied adult lives of teenage delinquents who grew up in low-income areas of Boston (born 1925-1935). The story behind these varied life paths and their consequences inspires fresh thinking about crime over the life course through models of life trajectories and vivid narratives that reveal the complexity of lives. --Glen H. Elder, Jr., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill This book redraws the landscape of developmental criminology that Laub and Sampson already have done so much to define, setting new standards and benchmarks along the way. The authors both provide new evidence for earlier conclusions and challenge prevailing assumptions and assertions, thereby reshaping the criminological research agenda for years to come. --John Hagan, Northwestern University

The central idea of this book is that the widespread "crisis" of juvenile delinquency can be grappled with only if one first understands delinquency as a persistent subculture that is traditional in certain neighborhoods of our cities.

Based on the re-analysis of Sheldon and Eleanor Gluecks' mid-century study of 500 delinquents and 500 non-delinquents from childhood to adulthood, this informal social control theory accepts the importance of childhood behaviour but rejects the idea that a.

ably the longest longitudinal study of age, crime, and the life course to date.

This text is written through case studies and interviews.

Integration of disciplines, theories and research orientations has assumed a central role in criminological discourse yet it remains difficult to identify any concrete discoveries or significant breakthroughs for which integration has been responsible. Concentrating on three key concepts: context, mechanisms, and development, this volume aims to advance integrated scientific knowledge on crime causation by bringing together different scholarly approaches. Through an analysis of the roles of behavioural contexts and individual differences in crime causation, The Explanation of Crime seeks to provide a unified and focused approach to the integration of knowledge. Chapter topics range from individual genetics to family environments and from ecological behaviour settings to the macro-level context of communities and social systems. This is a comprehensive treatment of the problem of crime causation that will appeal to graduate students and researchers in criminology and be of great interest to policy-makers and practitioners in crime policy and prevention.

Great American City demonstrates the powerfully enduring impact of place. Based on one of the most ambitious studies in the history of social science, Robert J. Sampson’s Great American City presents the fruits of over a decade’s research to support an argument that we all feel and experience every day: life is decisively shaped by your neighborhood. Engaging with the streets and neighborhoods of Chicago, Sampson, in this new edition, reflects on local and national changes that have transpired since his book’s initial publication, including a surge in gun violence and novel forms of segregation despite an increase in diversity. New research, much of it a continuation of the influential discoveries in Great American City, has followed, and here, Sampson reflects on its meaning and future directions. Sampson invites readers to see the status of the research initiative that serves as the foundation of the first edition—the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN)—and outlines the various ways other scholars have continued his work. Both accessible and incisively thorough, Great American City is a must-read for anyone interested in cutting-edge urban sociology and the study of crime.