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Crime, PUNISHMENT, and Social Change over the Life Course

Despite large social changes in the last quarter-century, studies of crime and the life course have neglected cohort differences in the historical contexts through which individuals come of age. This project is collecting new data and advancing a theoretical framework to assess a variety of hypotheses on crime and criminalization in the lives of 1,057 individuals from an original longitudinal study of multiple birth cohorts, 1995-present.

One paper from this larger project shows that large cohort differences in life course trajectories of arrest arise from changing macro-historical environments rather than dispositional, demographic, socioeconomic, or neighborhood differences in childhood. Further, the impact of two leading explanations of arrest—socioeconomic disadvantage and low self-control—depend on the historical timing of when children reached late adolescence and early adulthood. Cohort fortunes diverge mainly as a result of when both crime rates and police enforcement—especially of drug crimes—unexpectedly fell. The results quantify the power of social change and contribute a new understanding of inter- and intra-cohort inequalities in growing up during the era of mass incarceration and the great American crime decline.  Another paper traces the implications of these findings for theories of crime and punishment, especially influential theories of criminal propensity.

Selected papers and articles:

Exposure to Guns and Gun Violence Across 25+ Years in the Lives of Multiple Birth Cohorts From Chicago

Another major component of this project was awarded funding from the National Consortium on Gun Violence Research, which begins in the fall of 2020 (Robert J. Sampson, Principal Investigator; David S. Kirk, Co-Principal Investigator). This site will provide updates on the project, interim reports, and working papers.

Overview

This project addresses three challenges to research on urban gun violence: a lack of data on exposure to guns and gun violence over the extended life course; the understudied role of compounded disadvantage among individuals, families, and communities; and a lack of analytic focus on societal change.

Purpose

The last quarter-century has witnessed widespread changes, including large declines in violence, mass incarceration, the loosening of gun laws, and sharp fluctuations in policing. The purpose of this project is to examine the correlates and consequences of gun violence over the life course during this period of dramatic social change.

Approach

This study will enlarge and analyze longitudinal data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN)—a representative and diverse sample of more than 1,000 members of four birth cohorts of Chicago children who were followed over four waves of interviews, 1995–2012. At baseline, the cohorts ranged from newborns to ages 9, 12, and 15. Investigators will analyze existing waves of data and multiple extensions including longitudinal data on neighborhood gun violence. Further, they will conduct and analyze a new, fifth survey wave to be carried out in early 2021. The integrated PHDCN+ data collection will cover the last quarter-century of American history when children from diverse socioeconomic and racial backgrounds were growing up and becoming adults. The multi-cohort design comprising birth to age 41, combined with the comprehensive data collection, permits examination of gun violence over the life course during a period of considerable social change.

Significance

Gun violence and criminal justice have changed dramatically in the last quarter-century, yet cohort differences in aging through this period have largely unstudied consequences for children's development, and in turn for effective policies. The project will unite the study of gun violence with the study of the changing life course.

Investigator Bios

  • Robert J. Sampson is Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor at Harvard University. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the British Academy, and he received the Stockholm Prize in Criminology for his work on crime and the life course. Sampson is the author of three award-winning books and numerous peer-reviewed journal articles. His most recent book is Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect.

  • David Kirk is professor in the Department of Sociology and Nuffield College at the University of Oxford. He has worked on the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods for two decades and has successfully managed numerous research projects, including a recent experimental housing program for former prisoners. His book, Home Free, uses Hurricane Katrina as a natural experiment to examine whether residential relocation away from an old neighborhood can lead to desistance from crime.

Selected papers and articles:

Augmenting, Analyzing, and Archiving Criminal Trajectories in multiple Birth Cohorts from the PHDCN, 1995-2023

Another major component of this project was awarded funding from the National Institute of Justice, which begins in the fall of 2020 (Robert J. Sampson, Principal Investigator; Christopher Wildeman, Co-Principal Investigator). This site will provide updates on the project, interim reports, and working papers.

Overview

This project will build upon the existing longitudinal Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) by extending the collection of individual criminal histories from the main study sample from 2019 through 2023.

Purpose

The project will conduct research and produce papers and roundtables on a series of theory, policy, and practice relevant issues including:

  • Changing Social Demography of Crime and Criminal Justice Contact

  • Early Prediction and Pathways of Criminal Justice Contact

  • Intergenerational Crime and Criminal Justice Contact

  • Turning Points and Desistance

Approach

The primary source of this extended data collection is the Criminal History Record Information, which is reported to the state of Illinois and housed by the Illinois State Police.  The project will gather and analyze detailed data on arrests, charges, and dispositions by date and type of crime and delinquency through 2023. The researchers will analyze these data in terms of how childhood risk and protective factors influenced delinquent and criminal behavioral trajectories in terms of onset, persistence, escalation, and desistance. Emphasis will be placed on identifying: causal factors for delinquency and crime; points of intervention to reduce delinquency and crime; turning points in the life-course, which influence desistance; impact of exposure to violence in the family and community; intergenerational crime transmission influences; and predictive factors for risk assessment of reoffending potential. 

Significance

When complete, the integrated data will contain more than 25 years of continuous delinquent and criminal histories, an age range spanning infancy to age 43, up to four waves of interviews, including on unofficial delinquency, and multiple other assessments. This will allow the researchers to evaluate how existing criminological theories and predictive models perform over time, including before, during, and after the global COVID-19 pandemic that started in 2020.

Investigator Bios

  • Robert J. Sampson is Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor at Harvard University. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the British Academy, and he received the Stockholm Prize in Criminology for his work on crime and the life course. Sampson is the author of three award-winning books and numerous peer-reviewed journal articles. His most recent book is Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect.

  • Christopher Wildeman is Professor of Sociology at Duke University and Director of the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect. Wildeman has published broadly on the consequences of mass incarceration and the intergenerational transmission of criminal justice contact, on which he recently published an Annual Review of Criminology article. He has extensive experience working with longitudinal data and administrative data, adopting a host of techniques ranging from demographic to econometric in nature. Formally trained in demography at Princeton, he has special expertise in the methods proposed for the intergenerational transmission of criminal justice contact, estimating the prevalence of criminal justice contact, and conducting formal decomposition analyses.

Selected papers and articles: