From boy to man, from delinquency to crime /

An important contribution to the growing body of longitudinal research on delinquency and crime, this volume is a follow-up to Wolfgang, Figlio, and Thorsten Sellin's landmark study, Delinquency in a Birth Cohort (CH, Mar '73). It focuses on the subsequent criminal activities of a 875-member sample of youths from the original 1945 cohort between the ages of 18 and 30. It moves beyond the original study by providing analyses of self-report and victimization data as well as official data, and by following the law-violating activities of the sample into their adult years. The work is thereby able to address a number of critical questions pertinent to the linkage between an individual's involvement in criminal activities as a juvenile and the potential for subsequent involvement as a adult. Throughout, the work is technically sophisticated, cautious, and well grounded in the relevant empirical literature. Explicit summaries of topics as well as chapter summaries aid those not conversant with the statistical measures relied upon in the analyses of the data or those who lack the requisite sophistication needed to interpret tables and charts. Because the volume is a composite of chapters written by the editors and abbreviated versions of their students' doctoral dissertations, the chapters are of varying depth and breadth. Must reading for delinquency researchers, teachers, policymakers, and serious students. College and university libraries.-J.A. Black, University of Tennessee at Knoxville