Criminal Careers and Crime Control in Massachusetts [The Glueck Study]: A Matched-Sample Longitudinal Research Design, Phase I, 1939-1963
Description
The relationship between crime control policies and
fundamental parameters of the criminal career, such as career length,
participation in offenses, and frequency and seriousness of offenses
committed, is examined in this data collection. The investigators
coded, recoded, and computerized parts of the raw data from Sheldon
and Eleanor Glueck's three-wave, matched sample study of juvenile and
adult criminal behavior, extracting the criminal histories of the 500
delinquents (officially defined) from the Glueck study. Data were
originally collected by the Gluecks in 1940 through psychiatric
interviews with subjects, parent and teacher reports, and official
records obtained from police, court, and correctional files. The
subjects were subsequently interviewed again between 1949 and 1965 at
or near the age of 25, and again at or near the age of 32. The data
coded by Laub and Sampson include only information collected from
official records. The data address in part (1) what effects
probation, incarceration, and parole have on the length of criminal
career and frequency of criminal incidents of an offender, (2) how
the effects of criminal control policies vary in relation to the
length of sentence, type of offense, and age of the offender, (3)
which factors in criminal control policy correlate with criminal
career termination, (4) how well age of first offense predicts the
length of criminal career, and (5) how age of offender relates to
type of offense committed. Every incident of arrest up to the age of
32 for each respondent (ranging from 1 to 51 arrests) is recorded in
the data file. Variables include the dates of arrest, up to three
charges associated with the arrest, court disposition, and starting
and ending dates of probation, incarceration, and parole associated
with the arrest.