Robert J. Sampson - Böcker

Life-course criminology has generated new energy and provoked sharp debate over competing ideas about the fundamental relationship between age and crime.  A major catalyst for this debate – a 2003 American Society of Criminology (ASC) conference session entitled "Age, Crime, and Human Development: The Future of Life-Course Criminology," chaired by the editors of this issue – provided a springboard for this special issue of The Annals. 

With an eye to the future, this special issue provides critical debate on patterns of age and crime across the full life course – from infancy to late adulthood.  Criminal career topics such as onset, continuation, termination, and career length are also discussed, along with the viability of developmental and taxonomic theories of crime, the suitability of existing data archives to test theories, and the prospects for marrying longitudinal and experimental studies.

The distinguished papers that appear in this compelling collection include the full set of presentations from the inaugural Albany Symposium on Crime and Justice: "Developmental Criminology and Its Discontents: Offender Typologies and Trajectories of Crime," which took place in April 2005 and built upon the questions raised at the ASC conference session. In addition to the revised original papers and commentaries from the Albany symposium, this journal also includes never-before-published responses to the commentaries by each of the papers' authors.  An overview by Alfred Blumstein of the central issues raised at the symposium and a book-review essay by Hans-Jürgen Kerner rounds out the volume and collectively provides a comprehensive representation of the provocative discussion ignited by these intriguing session panels.

Centered on the fundamental discussions raised by the life-course paradigm in criminology, this historical issue of The Annals will potentially shape the theoretical and research agenda for years to come. It is an essential resource for scholars, researchers, and practitioners in the fields of criminology, sociology, psychology, criminal justice, aging, human development, and social policy. 

With a diverse set of viewpoints, this well-rounded and in-depth look at age, crime, and human development is a valuable contribution to existing studies and will serve as a foundation for future research into this lively topic. 

More than four decades after the publication of the controversial Moynihan Report, social scientists and policy analysts re-examine what the editors call "the most famous piece of social scientific analysis never published."

As assistant secretary in the United States Department of Labor, Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote his report "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action" in 1965 as an internal document within the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson. It described alarming trends in black employment, poverty, and education and argued that they were exacerbated by black family instability. While Moynihan called for a jobs program to employ black men and stabilize families, the report was attacked as an attempt to blame blacks rather than the injustices in American society and widely vilified as sexist and racist in liberal circles.

Now more than 40 years later, this issue of The ANNALS reviews this controversial yet "prophetic report" through a new lens, bringing together some of the country's foremost social scientists to consider how its arguments and predictions have fared in subsequent years and how the controversy surrounding it influenced social science in the late 20th century.

The volume also examines current issues, such as the state of the labor market for young black men in the face of continued discrimination, the link between nonmarital childbearing and poverty, the impacts of the radical transformation in the welfare system, the emergence of mass incarceration society and the persistence of racial residential segregation.

As race remains a fundamental cleavage in American society, intellectuals must embrace the systematic study of the sorts of difficult, sensitive, and often explosive issues first addressed in the Moynihan Report. This volume of The ANNALS is a must-read for students, scholars and policymakers who are ready for a more open, honest and civil debate on America's very real social problems today.

More than four decades after the publication of the controversial Moynihan Report, social scientists and policy analysts re-examine what the editors call "the most famous piece of social scientific analysis never published."

As assistant secretary in the United States Department of Labor, Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote his report "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action" in 1965 as an internal document within the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson. It described alarming trends in black employment, poverty, and education and argued that they were exacerbated by black family instability. While Moynihan called for a jobs program to employ black men and stabilize families, the report was attacked as an attempt to blame blacks rather than the injustices in American society and widely vilified as sexist and racist in liberal circles.

Now more than 40 years later, this issue of The ANNALS reviews this controversial yet "prophetic report" through a new lens, bringing together some of the country's foremost social scientists to consider how its arguments and predictions have fared in subsequent years and how the controversy surrounding it influenced social science in the late 20th century.

The volume also examines current issues, such as the state of the labor market for young black men in the face of continued discrimination, the link between nonmarital childbearing and poverty, the impacts of the radical transformation in the welfare system, the emergence of mass incarceration society and the persistence of racial residential segregation.

As race remains a fundamental cleavage in American society, intellectuals must embrace the systematic study of the sorts of difficult, sensitive, and often explosive issues first addressed in the Moynihan Report. This volume of The ANNALS is a must-read for students, scholars and policymakers who are ready for a more open, honest and civil debate on America's very real social problems today.