Crime and Human Development

Catalog description

One of the central research problems in criminology is the relationship between human development and the likelihood of committing crime. This course will examine the tools for measuring the onset of crime, its persistence, intermittency, and desistence. These tools include the study of birth cohorts of everyone born in a certain time and place, life course studies of juvenile delinquents and non-delinquents, trajectory analysis of people studied from pre-school through middle age, and interviews with 70 year old former delinquents who reflect on how their life-course affected the crimes they committed. This course will also examine the research findings that have been produced using these tools. Students will be asked to consider what these findings imply for major theories of crime causation as well as policies for crime prevention.