Understanding Delinquency and Crime: A Longitudinal Multidisciplinary Study of Developmental Patterns and Conditions Leading to Criminal Behavior (From Toward the Understanding of Criminal Behavior, 1983 -- See NCJ-110887)

• NCJ Number: 110888
• Author(s): D S Elliott; D Huizinga; F W Dunford
• Date Published: 1983
• Length: 101 pages
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This proposal outlines a major longitudinal study to identify those social conditions, personal characteristics, social and nonsocial interactions, and developmental processes and patterns that are causally linked to a sustained involvement in criminal behavior.

Abstract

The proposed set of explanatory variables includes those drawn from the biological, psychological, and social sciences. The measures of delinquency and crime, the primary dependent variables, include both self-reported criminality and officially recorded criminal acts. The design is prospective, with 11 annual data waves, supplemented by a series of smaller integrated studies designed to pursue special issues at greater depths over shorter time intervals. The latter studies will use a variety of data collection and measurement approaches (e.g., observation, telephone interviews, questionnaires, ethnographic descriptions). The sample for both the longitudinal and special studies will be a national probability sample, involving multiple birth cohorts, stratified for risk of serious involvement. The sampling plan will provide projected sequential data covering a 30-year span (age 5 to 35). The proposed research design will permit a genuine age-cohort analysis and the possibility of isolating age, cohort, and period effects. 8 footnotes and approximately 300 references.