Life Course Research and the Shaping of Public Policy

Criminologists have long complained that public policies on crime and justice are often not consistent with empirical research. In this paper, I address this issue by arguing that in part the problem is that public policy is not placed in a larger conceptual framework and I argue that a life course perspective could go a long way in enriching public policies on crime and justice. In my paper, I draw on results from a long-term research project examining the life course of crime from childhood to old age. This research is then placed in the context of my recent experience directing the National Institute of Justice in the Department of Justice. Embracing what I call “translational criminology,” I conclude by highlighting several examples of how life course research can shape policies on crime and justice moving forward.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Subscribe and save

• Get 10 units per month
• Download Article/Chapter or eBook
• 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
• Cancel anytime

Buy Now

eBook EUR 96.29 Price includes VAT (France)

Softcover Book EUR 126.59 Price includes VAT (France)

Hardcover Book EUR 179.34 Price includes VAT (France)

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Similar content being viewed by others

Life-Course and Developmental Criminology: Looking Back, Moving Forward—ASC Division of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology Inaugural David P. Farrington Lecture, 2017

Life Course

Life-Course Development and Crime: An Introduction

Notes

In an earlier paper, I argued that a life course perspective could serve as a paradigm for the field of criminology. Drawing on known facts about crime, I made the case that a life course perspective provided insight and understanding of the causes and dynamics of crime across the life span (see Laub 2006).

Homotypic continuity is continuity in similar behaviors across the life course such as the linkage between juvenile delinquency and adult crime. Heterotypic continuity is continuity in diverse behaviors across the life course such as the linkage between crime and other problem behaviors.

The American Society of Criminology is one of the largest international organizations in the world whose members are devoted exclusively to the study of and the prevention and control of crime.

One challenge facing life course researchers is convincing policymakers that longitudinal data collected over the long term are relevant to the current policy issues today. We faced this with the Glueck data which was drawn from a sample of white, ethnic delinquents who grew up during the Great Depression and came of age during an era when drugs like crack cocaine were nonexistent and guns were far less frequently used in violent crime compared to today.

References

• Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Google Scholar
• Cairns, R. B., & Cairns, B. D. (1994). Lifelines and risks: Pathways of youth in our time. New York: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar
• Caspi, A., Elder, G. H., Jr., & Herbener, E. S. (1990). Childhood personality and the prediction of life-course patterns. In L. Robins & M. Rutter (Eds.), Straight and devious pathways from childhood to adulthood (pp. 13–35). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar
• Elder, G. H., Jr. (1985). Perspectives on the life course. In G. H. Elder Jr. (Ed.), Life course dynamics (pp. 23–49). Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Google Scholar
• Elder, G. H., Jr. (1999). Children of the great depression: Social change in life experience, 25th Anniversary. Boulder: Westview Press. Google Scholar
• Elder, G. H., Jr., & Giele, J. Z. (Eds.). (2009). The craft of life course research. New York: The Guilford Press. Google Scholar
• Farrington, D. P. (1990). Implications of criminal career research for the prevention of offending. Journal of Adolescence, 13, 93–113. ArticleGoogle Scholar
• Glueck, S., & Glueck, E. (1950). Unraveling juvenile delinquency. New York: Commonwealth Fund. Google Scholar
• Glueck, S., & Glueck, E. (1968). Delinquents and nondelinquents in perspective. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. BookGoogle Scholar
• Goffman, A. (2014). On the run: Fugitive life in an American city. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. BookGoogle Scholar
• Gottfredson, M. R., & Hirschi, T. (1990). A general theory of crime. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Google Scholar
• Hirschi, T. (1969). Causes of delinquency. Berkeley: University of California Press. Google Scholar
• Jessor, R., & Jessor, S. L. (1977). Problem behavior and psychosocial development: A longitudinal study of youth. New York: Academic. Google Scholar
• Kirk, D. S., & Sampson, R. J. (2013). Juvenile arrest and collateral educational damage in the transition to adulthood. Sociology of Education, 86, 36–62. ArticleGoogle Scholar
• Laub, J. H. (2004). The life course of criminology in the United States: The American Society of Criminology 2003 presidential address. Criminology, 42, 1–26. ArticleGoogle Scholar
• Laub, J. H. (2006). Edwin H. Sutherland and the Michael-Adler report: Searching for the soul of criminology seventy years later. The American Society of Criminology 2006 Sutherland address. Criminology, 44, 235–258. ArticleGoogle Scholar
• Laub, J. H., & Sampson, R. J. (1993). Turning points in the life course: Why change matters to the study of crime. Criminology, 31, 301–325. ArticleGoogle Scholar
• Laub, J. H., & Sampson, R. J. (1995). The long-term effect of punitive discipline. In J. McCord (Ed.), Coercion and punishment in long-term perspectives (pp. 247–258). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar
• Laub, J. H., & Sampson, R. J. (2003). Shared beginnings, divergent lives: Delinquent boys to age 70. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Google Scholar
• Laub, J. H., & Vaillant, G. E. (2000). Delinquency and mortality: A fifty year follow-up study of 1,000 delinquent and nondelinquent boys. American Journal of Psychiatry, 157, 96–102. ArticleGoogle Scholar
• Moffitt, T. E. (1993). Adolescent-limited and life-course-persistent antisocial behavior: A developmental taxonomy. Psychological Review, 100, 674–701. ArticleGoogle Scholar
• National Research Council. (1977). Understanding crime: An evaluation of the National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Google Scholar
• National Research Council. (2010). Strengthening the National Institute of Justice. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Google Scholar
• National Research Council. (2012). Using science as evidence in public policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Google Scholar
• Powell, A. (2013, May 17). Speaking up for science. Harvard Gazette. Google Scholar
• Prewitt, K. (2013a, May 24). The congressional war on the social sciences. Pacific Standard.Google Scholar
• Prewitt, K. (2013b). Is any science safe? Science, 340, 525. ArticleGoogle Scholar
• Robins, L. N. (1966). Deviant children grown up. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins. Google Scholar
• Robins, L. N. (1978). Sturdy childhood predictors of adult antisocial behavior: Replications from longitudinal studies. Psychological Medicine, 8, 611–622. ArticleGoogle Scholar
• Sampson, R. J., & Laub, J. H. (1993). Crime in the making: Pathways and turning points through life. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Google Scholar
• Sampson, R. J., & Laub, J. H. (1997). A life-course theory of cumulative disadvantage and the stability of delinquency. In T. P. Thornberry (Ed.), Developmental theories of crime and delinquency: Advances in criminological theory (Vol. 7, pp. 133–161). New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Google Scholar
• Sampson, R. J., & Laub, J. H. (2003). Life-course desisters? Trajectories of crime among delinquent boys followed to age 70. Criminology, 41, 301–339. ArticleGoogle Scholar
• Sampson, R. J., & Laub, J. H. (special issue editors). (2005). Developmental criminology and its discontents: Trajectories of crime from childhood to old Age. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (Vol. 602). Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA. Google Scholar
• Sampson, R. J., Winship, C., & Knight, C. (2013). Translating causal claims: Principles and strategies for policy-relevant criminology. Criminology & Public Policy, 12, 587–616. ArticleGoogle Scholar
• Sherman, L. W. (2013). The rise of evidence-based policing: Targeting, testing, and tracking. In M. Tonry (Ed.), Crime and justice in America: 1975–2025 (pp. 377–451). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar
• Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2008). Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness. New Haven: Yale University Press. Google Scholar
• Travis, J., Western, B., & Redburn, S. (Eds.). (2014). The growth of incarceration in the United States: Exploring causes and consequences. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Google Scholar
• Tseng, V. (2012a). The use of research in policy and practice. Social Policy Report, 26, 1–16. Google Scholar
• Tseng, V. (2012b). Partnerships: Shifting the dynamics between research and practice. New York: William T. Grant Foundation. Google Scholar
• Wakefield, S., & Wildeman, C. (2014). Children of the prison boom: Mass incarceration and the future of American inequality. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar
• Weiss, C. H., Murphy-Graham, E., Petrosino, A., & Gandhi, A. G. (2008). The fairy godmother and her warts: Making the dream of evidence-based policy come true. American Journal of Evaluation, 29, 29–47. ArticleGoogle Scholar
• Wilson, J. Q. (1996). What, if anything, can the federal government do about crime? (Perspectives on crime and justice: 1996–1997 lecture series, Vol. I). Washington, DC: NIJ Perspectives on Crime and Justice Seminars. Google Scholar

Acknowledgements

I thank Mike Shanahan, Monica Johnson, and Jeylan Mortimer for their comments on an earlier draft. I also thank Nicole Frisch and Shradha Sahani for their research assistance.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

1. Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA John H. Laub

1. John H. Laub