ABSTRACT

This chapter investigates the replicability of risk factors for delinquency across time and place. It compares the development of offending in the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development, which is a prospective longitudinal survey of 411 London boys originally of ages 8 to 9 in 1961-1962, and in the middle sample of the Pittsburgh Youth Study, comprising 508 Pittsburgh boys originally between the ages of 10 and 11 in 1987-1988. It seeks to establish which risk factors during childhood (age 8-10) predict court appearances for delinquency in adolescence (age 10-16) in English and U.S. samples of inner-city boys in different time periods (1963-1971 in London and 1987-1994 in Pittsburgh).