ABSTRACT
This volume has presented findings that are unique in the annals of criminology and clarify many delinquency career and explanatory parameters (see Table 1.1 definitions in Chapter 1). We are not aware of any other longitudinal study that prospectively covers—with regular, uninterrupted measurements and low attrition—the age span 7–25 using two sizable cohorts of young males. Thus, this study avoids potential bias resulting from often faulty retrospective recall, and instead uses biannual to annual reporting periods with higher reliability of recall. Outcome measures included self-reports, reports from caretakers and teachers, and official records of offending, which have been combined into a measure of all-source offending, thereby compensating for the weaknesses of each source and also capitalizing on the strengths of each. Predictor constructs in this study have been based mostly on multiple measurements from multiple informants (the youths, the parents, and, where possible, teachers) thereby increasing their measurement and predictive validity. The longitudinal analyses have been undertaken in several complementary ways, thereby strengthening the overall results. The availability of two age cohorts with a six-year age difference, together with the peaking of community crime in Pittsburgh in the early 1990s, has allowed us to examine cohort differences in offending, a topic that has rarely been considered in longitudinal studies on crime. Further, this study contributes to the literature on differences in delinquency career parameters depending on whether reported delinquency, arrest, or conviction data are the foci of study. Also for the first time, analyses that focus on the prediction of serious offending have been based on an empirical demonstration of promotive, protective, and risk factors as they operate from childhood through late adolescence. Notably, this study’s features make it possible to examine the extent to which several current theories of crime apply to the two inner-city cohorts of young males in this study. Finally, a great advantage of the study is that we could replicate many of the findings between the youngest and oldest cohorts for the developmental period that they shared (ages 13–19) when serious offending increased alongside gang membership, gun carrying, drug dealing, and various forms of substance use.
