NCJ Number
244694
Date Published
2003
Length
347 pages
Annotation
Drawing on the classic study "Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency" (Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck, 1950), this book analyzes newly collected data on crime and social development up to age 70 for 500 men who were born in Boston in the late 1920s and 1930s and remanded to reform school in the 1940s.
Abstract
The aim of the book is to understand these men's lives, with attention to their accounts of their criminal offending and many other behaviors over the full life course. Based in their analysis of data on these men's lives, the authors reject the idea that childhood experiences, such as early involvement in antisocial behavior, growing up in poverty, and poor school performance reliably predict long-term offending. They also reject the theory that individual "traits," such as poor verbal skills, low self-control, and difficult temperament, explain long-term patterns of juvenile delinquency. In addition, they reject the popular view that offenders can be reliably grouped into distinct categories, based on trajectory and etiology of offending. Their theory of persistence and desistance in criminal behavior emphasizes an age-graded theory of social ties and informal social control at all ages across the life course. Their organizing principle is that crime and deviance are more likely to occur when an individual's bond to society is weak or broken. The analysis of the life courses of these individuals highlights the role of informal social controls that emerge from the social exchanges and structure of interpersonal bonds that link members of society to one another and to wider institutions of work, family, school, and community. Job stability and marital attachment in adulthood were significantly related to changes in adult crime. Tables, figures, approximately 360 references, and a subject index