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CRIM 260Spring 2014

Crime and Human Development
TTR 9:00 AM 10:30 AM
Location: College Hall 318
Instructor: Dr. Charles Loeffler, University of Pennsylvania
(cloef@sas.upenn.edu)
Office Hours: Wednesdays 11:30 am 1:30pm
Office Hours Location: McNeil 570

Course Description
One of the central research problems in criminology is the relationship between human development and
the likelihood of committing crime. This course will examine the tools for measuring the onset of crime,
its persistence, intermittency, and desistence. These tools include the study of birth cohorts of everyone
born in a certain time and place, life course studies of juvenile delinquents and non-delinquents,
trajectory analysis of people studied from pre-school through middle age, and interviews with 70-year-
old former delinquents who reflect on how their life-course affected the crimes they committed. This
course will also examine the research findings that have been produced using these tools. Students will
be asked to consider what these findings imply for major theories of crime causation as well as policies
for crime prevention.
Student Performance Evaluation: Grades will be based upon the following criteria:
Class Participation and Attendance 20%
1
st
Mid-term 20%
2
nd
Mid-term 20%
Final Examination 40%
Course Requirements:
1) There will be three exams in this course (two mid-terms and a final). All three will have the same
format (i.e., multiple-choice questions, short-answer questions, and a choice of essay
questions).

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2) Each Tuesday and Thursday there will be a lecture followed by an in-class discussion on the
weeks readings.
3) Class attendance is mandatory.
Office Hours and Class Meeting Time/Location:
My office is located in Room 570 in the McNeil Building on Locust Walk. For the Spring semester, my
office hours will be from 11:30 to 1:30 every Wednesday. Please use the sign-up sheet on Canvas to
schedule a time-slot. If you would like to meet with me and cannot make that time window, please
email me at cloef@sas.upenn.edu to schedule an alternate appointment.
Class will meet Tuesday and Thursday in College Hall 318.
Expectations: When preparing and presenting academic work, the work of others will be properly
attributed, consistent with the University Code of Academic Integrity.
Course Readings: The readings for this course are drawn primarily from research articles and links to
these articles have been included in the syllabus. If you are accessing articles from off campus or
otherwise experience problems with embedded links, all non-book course readings are also available via
PennText or Penns Google Scholar interface. In addition, a small number of books will be on reserve at
Van Pelt. Some of these are assigned readings and others are useful resources.
Harcourt, Bernard E. 2007. Against Prediction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Laub, John H. and Robert Sampson. 2003. Shared Beginnings, Divergent Lives: Delinquent Boys to Age
70. Harvard University Press.
Maruna, Shadd. 2001. Making Good: How Ex-Convicts Reform and Rebuild Their Lives. American
Psychological Association; Washington, D.C.
Matza, David. 1964. Delinquency and Drift. New York: Wiley
Piquero and Mazerolle. 2001. Life-Course Criminology: Contemporary and Classic Readings.
Wadsworth Publishing.
Sampson, Robert J. and John H. Laub. 1993. Crime in the Making: Pathways and Turning Points Through
Life. Harvard University Press.
Shover, Neil. 1985. Aging Criminals. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.
Course Outline
January 16 Review of Syllabus and 1
st
lecture on Age and Crime
January 21 Life Course Paradigm
January 23 Life Course Paradigm

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January 28 Developmental Criminology
January 30 Developmental Criminology
February 4 Criminal Career Research
February 6 Onset
February 11 Change and Continuity
February 13 1
st
Mid-term (in class)
February 18 Co-offending
February 20 Violence
February 25 Desistance
February 27 Desistance
March 4 Gender
March 6 Gender
March 11 No ClassSpring Break
March 13 No ClassSpring Break
March 18 Cross-National Comparisons
March 20 Cross-Temporal Comparisons
March 25 2
nd
Mid-term (in class)
March 27 Turning Points Revisited
April 1 Imprisonment and the Life-Course
April 3 Imprisonment and the Life-Course
April 8 Prediction
April 10 Prediction
April 15 Criminal Justice
April 17 Criminal Justice
April 22 Future Directions

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April 24 Future directions
April 29 Last Day of ClassReview

Readings
Week 1Age and Crime
Hirschi, Travis and Michael R. Gottfredson (1983). "Age and the Explanation of Crime."
American Journal of Sociology 89:552-584. Link
Farrington, David P. (1986). "Age and Crime." Pp. 189-250 in Crime and Justice (Volume 7), edited by
Michael Tonry and Norval Morris. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Link

Week 2Life Course Paradigm
Elder, Glen H., Jr. (1994). Time, Human Agency, and Social Change: Perspectives on the Life
Course. Social Psychology Quarterly 57:4-15. Link

Osgood, D. Wayne. 2005. Making sense of crime and the life course. In Developmental Criminology
and Its Discontents: Trajectories of Crime from Childhood to Old Age. The ANNALS of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science 602:196-211. Link
Sampson, Robert J. and John H. Laub (1990). Crime and Deviance over the Life Course: The Salience of
Adult Social Bonds. American Sociological Review 55(5):609-627. Link
Sampson, Robert J. and John H. Laub (1992). "Crime and Deviance in the Life Course." Annual Review of
Sociology 18:63-84. Link

Week 3Developmental Criminology
Farrington, David P. 2003. Developmental and life-course criminology: Key theoretical and empirical
issues the 2002 Sutherland award address. Criminology 41(2):221-256. Link
Loeber, Rolf and Marc LeBlanc. 1990. Toward a developmental criminology. Crime and Justice: A
Review of Research, Volume 12. Link
Moffitt, Terrie E. (1993). "Adolescence-Limited and Life-Course Persistent Antisocial Behavior:
A Developmental Taxonomy." Psychological Review 100: 674-701. Link


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Week 4Criminal Career Research and Onset
Blumstein, Alfred and Jacqueline Cohen. 1979. Characterizing Criminal Careers. Science 237(4818):
985-991. Link
Gottfredson, Michael and Travis Hirschi (1988). "Science, Public Policy, and the Career Paradigm."
Criminology 26:37-55. Link
Anderson, Elijah. The code of the streets. The Atlantic Monthly 273(1994):81. Link
Farrington, David P. 1998. Predictors, Causes, and Correlates of Male Youth Violence. Crime and Justice:
A Review of Research, Volume 24, Pp. 421-475. Link
Matza, David. 1964. Delinquency and Drift. New York: Wiley (Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 6)

Week 5Change and Continuity
Laub, John H. and Robert J. Sampson. 1993. Turning points in the life course: Why change matters to
the study of crime. Criminology 31(3):301-325. Link
Nagin, Daniel S. and Raymond Paternoster. 1991. On the relationship of past and future participation in
delinquency. Criminology 29(2):163-189. Link
Nagin, Daniel S. and Raymond Paternoster. 2000. Population heterogeneity and state dependence:
State of the evidence and directions for future research. Journal of Quantitative Criminology 16(2):117-
144. Link

Week 6Co-offending and Violence
Reiss, Jr., Albert J. 1988. Co-offending and Criminal Careers. Crime and Justice 10: 117-170. Link
McCord, Joan and Kevin P. Conway. 2005. Co-Offending and patterns of Juvenile Crime. Research Brief.
National Institute of Justice. Link
Loeber, R. and Stouthamer-Loeber, M. 1998. Development of juvenile aggression and violence: some
common misconceptions and controversies. American Psychologist 53(2): 242. Link
Piquero, A.R., Jennings, W.G. and Barnes, J.C. 2012. Violence in criminal careers: A review of the
literature from a developmental life-course perspective. Aggression and Violent Behavior 17: 171-179.
Link

Week 7Desistance

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Blumstein, Alfred and Nakamura, Kiminori. 2009. Redemption in the Presence of Widespread Criminal
Background Checks. Criminology 47(2): 327-359. Link
Kogon, Bernard, and Donald L. Loughery, Jr. 1970. Sealing and expungement of criminal recordsthe big
lie. The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science 61: 37892. Link

Laub, John H. and Robert J. Sampson (2001). "Understanding Desistance from Crime. Pp. 1-69
in Crime and Justice: A Review of Research (Volume 28), edited by Michael Tonry. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press. Link

Maruna, Shadd; Making Good: How Ex-Convicts Reform and Rebuild Their Lives, 2001.
Sampson, Robert J. and John H. Laub. 2003. Life Course Desisters? Trajectories of Crime Among
Delinquent Boys Followed to Age 70. Criminology 41(3): 555-592. Link

Week 8Gender and Crime
Broidy, Lisa, Daniel Nagin, Richard Tremblay, John Bates, Bobby Brame, Kenneth Dodge,
David Fergusson, John Horwood, Rolf Loeber, Robert Laird, Donald Lynam, Terrie Moffitt,
Gregory Pettit, and Frank Vitaro (2003). Developmental Trajectories of Childhood Disruptive
Behaviors and Adolescent Delinquency: A Six-Site, Cross-National Study. Developmental
Psychology 39:222-245.Link

Giordano, Peggy C., Stephen A. Cernkovich, and Jennifer L. Rudolph. 2002. Gender, crime, and
desistance: Toward a theory of cognitive transformation. American Journal of Sociology 107(4):990-
1064. Link
Odgers, C L. et al. Female and male antisocial trajectories: From childhood origins to adult outcomes.
Development and psychopathology 20.02 (2008):673 Link
Caspi, Avshalom, Donald Lynam, Terrie Moffitt, and Phil Silva (1993). Unraveling Girls
Delinquency: Biological, Dispositional, and Contextual Contributions to Adolescent
Misbehavior. Developmental Psychology 29:19-30. Link

Leverentz, A. M. 2006. The Love of a Good Man? Romantic Relationships as a Source of
Support or Hindrance for Female Ex-offenders. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency,
43:459-488. Link

Week 9Cross-National and Cross-Temporal Comparisons
Caspi, Avshalom, Terrie E. Moffitt, Phil A. Silva, Magda Stouthamer-Loeber, Robert F. Krueger,
and Pamela S. Schmutte (1994). "Are Some People Crime-Prone? Replications of the Personality-
Crime Relationship Across Countries, Genders, Races, and Methods." Criminology 32:163-195. Link

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Greenberg, David F. Age, Crime, and Social Explanation.1985. American Journal of Sociology 91(1): 1-21.
Link
Steffensmeier et al. 1989. Age and the Distribution of Crime. American Journal of Sociology (94(4): 803-
831. Link (AJS 1989)

Week 10Turning Points Revisited
Bouffard, L. 2003. Examining the relationship between military service and criminal behavior during the
Vietnam war: a research note. Criminology 41(2): 491. Link
Sampson, Robert J. and John H. Laub. 1996. Socioeconomic Achievement in the Life Course
of Disadvantaged Men: Military Service as a Turning Point, Circa 1940-1965. American
Sociological Review 61:347-367. Link

Sampson, Laub, Wimer. 2006. Does marriage reduce crime? A counterfactual approach to within-
individual causal effects. Criminology 44(3):465-. Link
Theobold, D. and D. Farrington. 2011. Why do the crime-reducing effects of marriage vary with age?
British Journal of Criminology 51(1): 136. Link

Week 11Imprisonment and the Life-Course
Loeffler, Charles E. 2013. Does Imprisonment Alter the Life Course? Evidence on Crime and Employment
from a Natural Experiment. Criminology 51(1): 137-166. Link
Murray, Joseph and David P. Farrington. 2008. Parental Imprisonment: Long-lasting effects on boys
internalizing problems through the life course. Development and Psychopathology 20: 273-290. Link
Pettit, Becky and Bruce Western. 2004. Mass Imprisonment and the Life Course: Race and Class
Inequality in U.S. Incarceration. American Sociological Review. 69: 151-169. Link

Week 12Prediction
Berk, R. 2009. Forecasting Murder within a Population of Probationers and Parolees: A High Stakes
Application of Statistical Learning. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A, Statistics in society
172 (1): 191-211. Link
Gottfredson, Don M. 1987. Prediction and Classification in Criminal Justice Decision Making. Crime and
Justice. 9: 1-20. Link

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Harcourt, Bernard E. 2007. Against Prediction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Sampson, Robert J. and John H. Laub. 2005. When Prediction Fails: From Crime-Prone Boys to
Heterogeneity in Adulthood. In Developmental Criminology and Its Discontents: Trajectories of Crime
from Childhood to Old Age. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
602:73-79. Link

Week 13Criminal Justice
Bishop, Donna. 2000. Juvenile Offenders in the Adult Criminal Justice System. Crime and Justice 27: 81-
167. Link
Cauffman, Elizabeth. 2012. Aligning justice system processing with developmental science. Criminology
& Public Policy. 11(4): 751-758. Link
Monahan, K., Steinberg, L., Cauffman, E., & Mulvey, E. 2009. Trajectories of antisocial behavior and
psychosocial maturity from adolescence to young adulthood. Developmental Psychology, 45, 1654-
1668. Link
Steinberg L, Cauffman E. 1996. Maturity of judgment in adolescence: Psychosocial factors in adolescent
decision making. Law and Human Behavior. 20:249272. Link
Steinberg, L. and E. Cauffman. "Developmental Perspective on Serious Juvenile Crime: When Should
Juveniles Be Treated as Adults, A." Federal probation 63(1999):52. Link

Week 14Future Directions
Nagin, Daniel S. and Richard E. Tremblay (2005). Developmental Trajectory Groups: Fact or a
Useful Statistical Fiction? Criminology 43: 873-904. Link

Paternoster, Ray and Greg Pogarsky (2009). Rational Choice, Agency, and Thoughtfully
Reflective Decision Making: The Short and Long-Term Consequences of Making Good
Choices. Journal of Quantitative Criminology 25:103-127. Link