ABSTRACT
The theoretical debates about the nature of developmental criminology recorded in the November 2005 Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences go to the heart of the criminological enterprise because they are concerned with fundamental issues of causation, the nature of the life course, and the methods we use to think about and to do our research. The North American debate and the arguments proposed in a number of the chapters in this book are also fundamentally important to those interested in the prevention of crime and related social problems, not least because if the critics are correct, accurate prediction from individual traits, from risk factors, and from prior experiences seems largely beyond reach (see Homel 2005 for a discussion of some of the theoretical issues).
