ABSTRACT
Social behavior occurs in particular times and particular places, in concert with particular social actors. For several years, the authors have been working with a longitudinal study of crime causation originated by Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck. This chapter argues that precisely because these data are "old" they provide an unusual opportunity to assess whether and in what ways the causes of juvenile delinquency and adult crime are specific to a historical period. A wealth of information on social, psychological, and biological characteristics, family life, school performance, work experiences, and other life events was collected on the delinquents and nondelinquent controls from 1939 to 1948. Eleanor Glueck's early research focused on the sociology of education, especially the relation between schools and the community, and evaluation research methods in social work. In fact, during the 1930s in Boston the offense of drunkenness constituted a relatively large number of the overall arrests and prosecutions.
