AGED-GRADED THEORY

Sampson and Laub: Age-graded theory of informal social control

Sampson and Laub: Age-graded theory of informal social control

Introduction

A debate over the significance of criminal careers dominated theoretical criminology, beginning in the mid-1980s. On one side, Alfred Blumstein et al. (1986, 1988a, 1988b) promoted a criminal career model to describe the volume of crime committed over an individual lifespan, including age of onset, frequency of offending, age of termination (desistance), and career length. The criminal careers paradigm suggested that each of these parameters warranted investigation and, possibly, distinct theoretical explanations. In opposition, Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi argued that these supposed distinct parameters were not necessary for understanding the causes of crime; stable individual differences in self-control accounted for the crime committed over an individual criminal career. Furthermore, because of the stability of these differences, there was no need to measure criminal career lengths, or even to conduct longitudinal research (Laub, & Nagin, 1998).

This debate fueled many theoretical and quantitative advances in criminology throughout the 1990s, and continues to impact research today. In 1993, Robert J. Sampson and John H. Laub joined the fray by introducing a compelling new age-graded theory of informal social control in their book Crime in the Making: Pathways and Turning Points through Life. This theory has become the leading life-course theory of crime. The theory does not side with either Blumstein's criminal career model or Gottfredson and Hirschi's self-control theory; rather, it attempts to walk a middle ground, drawing useful elements from both perspectives. Sampson and Laub side with Blumstein in terms of embracing the value of longitudinal research and explanations of crime that takes into account not just the beginning of a criminal career but persistence and desistance as well. They reject the stable individual differences hypothesis of Gottfredson and Hirschi, claiming instead that individual propensity to offend may vary over the life course due to a number of factors, primarily informal social controls. Their recent theoretical reformulation, presented in Shared Beginnings, Divergent Lives, identifies a number of factors, in addition to informal social control, that explain crime across the life course, the most important of which are routine activities and human agency (Laub, & Nagin, 1998).

Age-graded theory of informal social control

According to the theory, social control, routine activities, and human agency, both directly and in interaction, affect trajectories of crime across the entire life course. The Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency Study Sampson and Laub's life-course theory are drawn from their analysis of a groundbreaking data set. The data for a multiple -wave prospective study of juvenile and adult criminal behavior were originally collected by Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck and presented in their book Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency. However, the Gluecks collected a wide range of data for analysis relating to criminal career histories, criminal justice interventions, family life, school and employment history, and recreational activities for the subjects in childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. Despite the richness of this study, the original case files were left nearly forgotten in the basement of the Harvard Law School Library ...