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Making Sense of Crime and the Life Course

Author

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  • D. Wayne Osgood

    (Department of Sociology at Pennsylvania State University; Mac-Arthur Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood and of the National Consortium on Violence Research.)

Abstract

This article reflects on the progress of research on developmental and life-course criminology, comments on the status of some unresolved issues, and offers recommendations for the future. The first sections relate these articles and the current status of the field to two themes from the criminal careers debate of the 1980s and 1990s: generalization versus disaggregation as approaches to advancing science and continuous versus categorical conceptions of variation in criminal careers. The article also discusses the use of the growth curve models that are so prominent in developmental and life-span research, emphasizing the aspects of change that they do and do not capture, pointing out implications of that limitation for the need for expanding theories andmodels of change, and explaining the simple steps needed to enhance growth curve models to accomplish that purpose.

Suggested Citation

  • D. Wayne Osgood, 2005. "Making Sense of Crime and the Life Course," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 602(1), pages 196-211, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:602:y:2005:i:1:p:196-211
    DOI: 10.1177/0002716205280383
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Robert J. Sampson & John H. Laub, 2005. "A Life-Course View of the Development of Crime," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 602(1), pages 12-45, November.
    2. Daniel S. Nagin & Richard E. Tremblay, 2005. "What Has Been Learned from Group-Based Trajectory Modeling? Examples from Physical Aggression and Other Problem Behaviors," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 602(1), pages 82-117, November.
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    Cited by:

    1. Christopher J. Sullivan & Jean Marie McGloin & Alex R. Piquero, 2008. "Modeling the Deviant Y in Criminology: An Examination of the Assumptions of Censored Normal Regression and Potential Alternatives," Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Springer, vol. 24(4), pages 399-421, December.

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