The Life-Course of Serious and Violent Youth Grown Up

This book describes an outstandingly important longitudinal study of a large sample of incarcerated Canadian boys and girls. It is a brilliant contribution to developmental and life-course criminology, advancing knowledge especially about criminal career features, offending trajectories, the importance of psychopathy, and theories of desistance. It includes interesting case histories and draws policy implications. It should be read by all criminologists, psychologists, and social scientists who are interested in the development of criminal careers. David P. Farrington, Emeritus Professor of Psychological Criminology Cambridge University This remarkable book tells the story of the spell-binding story of 1700 offenders followed from adolescence to mature adulthood in Canada's Incarcerated Serious and Violent Young Offender Study. The science is terrific, and it's careful. There are rich quantitative data and qualitative data. But unlike most criminology writing, the book doesn't hide behind a fastidious over-focus on measurement, methodology, and theory. Instead, the book grapples up close and personal with the reality of chronic, serious, and violent offenders. It deals with factors typically omitted, such as foster care, drug addiction, gang membership, and custodial sentences. This book gets in there and gets it hands dirty. The result is eye-popping new information about where offenders come from and where they go when they grow older, and why. The book ends with a plea for criminology to look more at crime from the perspective of justice system professionals tasked with controlling it. I can't recommend it too strongly, for students, researchers, and justice system professionals. Terrie E Moffitt, Nannerl O. Keohane University Professor, Duke University, Professor of Social Behaviour and Development, Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, and Associate Director, Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study