After decades of rigorous study in the United States and across the Western world, a great deal is known about the early risk factors for offending. High impulsiveness, low attainment, criminal parents, parental conflict, and growing up in a deprived, high-crime neighborhood are among the most important factors. There is also a growing body of high quality scientific evidence on the effectiveness of early prevention programs designed to prevent children from embarking on a life of crime. D...

The Handbook of Crime Correlates, Second Edition summarizes more than a century of worldwide research on traits and social conditions associated with criminality and antisocial behavior. Findings are provided in tabular form, enabling readers to determine at a glance the nature of each association. Within each table, results are listed by country, type of crime (or other forms of antisocial behavior), and whether each variable is positively, negatively, or insignificantly associated with o...

Most criminological theories are not truly scientific, since they do not yield exact quantitative predictions of criminal career features, such as the prevalence and frequency of offending at different ages. This Element aims to make progress towards more scientific criminological theories. A simple theory is described, based on measures of the probability of reoffending and the frequency of offending. Three offender categories are identified: high risk/high rate, high risk/low rate, and l...

This book aims to advance knowledge about the recidivism of young offenders. It reviews knowledge about risk factors for recidivism and about protective factors that encourage desistance. It then reviews quantitative research on predictors of recidivism versus desistance of young offenders in Buenos Aires, Argentina, based on following up over 100 young offenders during a two-year statutory monitoring period. Numerous factors are identified that predict recidivism: family, educational, soc...

This second edition book advances knowledge about criminal careers throughout life. It presents new results from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD), which is a unique longitudinal study of the development of offending from age 10 to age 61. Previous results obtained in the CSDD are reviewed, and then new findings from official criminal records up to age 61 are presented: on offending at different ages, continuity in offending, ages of onset, and criminal career duration. ...

Scholars and policymakers increasingly call for evidence-based, prevention-oriented, and community-driven approaches to improve public health and reduce youth crime, substance use, and related problems. However, few functional models exist. In Communities that Care, four leading experts on prevention describe one such system to illustrate how communities effectively engage in prevention activities. Communities That Care (CTC) is a coalition-based prevention system implemented succ...

The United Kingdom has more than 4.2 million public closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras-one for every fourteen citizens. Across the United States, hundreds of video surveillance systems are being installed in town centers, public transportation facilities, and schools at a cost exceeding $100 million annually. And now other Western countries have begun to experiment with CCTV to prevent crime in public places. In light of this expansion and the associated public expenditure, as well a...

This brief examines the influence and prestige of scholars and works in the field of criminology and criminal justice, as well as changes in influence and prestige over a period of 35 years, using citation analysis. Based on responses to prior research, most criminologists consider the results both fascinating and thought-provoking, although methods of measuring scholarly influence are also highly controversial. The brief includes 35 years of data (1986 through 2020) on the most-cited scho...

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Explaining Criminal Careers presents a simple but influential theory of crime, conviction and reconviction. The assumptions of the theory are derived directly from a detailed analysis of cohort samples extracted from the Home Office Offenders Index - a uniqu...

In 1982 the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation created a small committee-the Justice Program Study Group (whose membership is listed at the end ofthis preface)-and posed to it what can hardly be regarded as an easy ques tion: "What ideas, what concepts, what basic intellectual frameworks are lack ing" to understand and to more effectively deal with crime in our society? Those who are acquainted with the work of the members of the Study Group will appreciate how many divergent vi...

This book reviews research on psychology and crime in Japan, and compares the findings with similar research conducted in Western industrialised countries. It examines explanations for crime and antisocial behaviour in Japan using research and theories from a psychological perspective. Topics covered include cultural explanations, developmental and life-course criminology, family violence and family risk factors, youth crime and early prevention, school factors and bullying, mental disorde...

This compact resource synthesizes current research on bullying in the schools while presenting strengths-based approaches to curbing this growing epidemic. Its international review of cross-sectional and longitudinal studies unravels the complex dynamics of bullying and provides depth on the range of negative outcomes for bullies, victims, enablers, and victims who bully. Chapters on protective factors against bullying identify personal competencies, such as empathy development, and keys t...