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This volume is a statistical and sociological analysis of one of the leading causes of death in the United States. Combining original research and a review of all major previous studies on criminal homicide in America, this study attempts to discover and to analyze patterns in criminal homicide from among almost six hundred cases that occurred in the city of Philadelphia between January 1, 1948, and December 31, 1952. The primary source of data utilized by Marvin E. Wolfgang was the files of the Homicide Squad of the Philadelphia Police Department. Answers were sought to a series of questions regarding 588 victims and 621 offenders involved in criminal homicide with respect to the following:...
"Delinquency in a Birth Cohort is a turning point in criminological research in the United States," writes Norval Morris in his foreword. "What has been completely lacking until this book is an analysis of delinquency in a substantial cohort of youths, the cohort being defined other than by their contact with any part of the criminal justice system." This study of a birth cohort was not originally meant to be etiological or predictive. Yet the data bearing on this cohort of nearly ten thousand boys born in 1945 and living in Philadelphia gave rise to a model for prediction of delinquency, and thus to the possibility for more efficient planning of programs for intervention. It is expert resea...
Ira Lipman Marvin Wolfgang was the greatest criminologist in the United States of America in the last half of the 20th century, if not the entire century. We first met on March 3, 1977, in Philadelphia. I sought him out after his work with Edwin Newman's NBC Reports: Violence in America. He was a tender, loving, caring individual who loved excellence-whether it be an intellectual challenge, the arts or any other pursuit. It is a great privilege to take part in honoring Marvin Wolfgang, a great American. Our approaches to the subject of crime came from different perspectives one as a researcher and the other as the founder of one of the world's largest security services companies. We both wan...
The relationship between alcohol and homicide in America is explored both historically and theoretically, providing the groundwork for two empirical analyses. The first, a theoretical approach, leads to the development of a selective disinhibition hypothesis, the implications of which are tested in a longitudinal analysis of alcohol availability and homicide in 256 U.S. cities between 1960 and 1980. Alcohol availability was found to significantly increase homicide rates. Availability also interacted with city poverty rates, lack of social bonds, and the age structure to further increase the incidence of murder. The second analysis, policy based, focuses on the impact on youth homicide rates of increases in the minimum age of purchase for alcohol, enacted by most states during the 1980s. This analysis shows that increases in the minimum drinking age had a significant impact on certain types of youth homicide. The book concludes with a discussion of the causes of the alcohol and homicide relationship, public policy and crime control alternatives for reducing alcohol related homicide, and other ongoing research that addresses these and other issues.
This is a follow-up study to "Delinquency in a birth cohort", the 1972 study which traced the development from birth to age 18 of male delinquents in the Philadelphia birth cohort of 1945. This study follows a sample from the original cohort up to age 30 and extends the analytic strategies of the previous work. More than 60 per cent of the subjects were interviewed at age 25. Their attitudes, values, experiences as crime victims, self-reported involvement in crime, and other facets of their lives are used to round out the picture developed from official sources. Among their findings, the authors show that : there is little offense specialization, even during adult years; that the seriousness of offenses increases with age, but that the actual number of crimes committed decreases. In other aspects -- such as the intervals between arrests and differences between white and non-white arrest patterns -- the adult data sometimes replicate juvenile results and sometimes offer new insights into offender patterns.
Researchers have long noted that rates of reported crime and punishment are higher for some ethnic and racial groups in the U.S. than for others. Comparatively high rates of crime have been reported for white ethnic Americans during the past and some groups of racial minorities today. These observations have prompted much public debate and acrimony, but surprisingly little research. Contributors include Thomas A. Regulus; Joan McCord; M. Craig Brown and Barbara D. Warner; Eric Monkkonen; E. M. Beck and Stewart E. Tolnay; Martha A. Myers; Gary LaFree; Robert D. Crutchfield; Dorothy Lockwood, Anne E. Pottieger, and James A. Inciardi; William Chambliss; Coramae Richey Mann; Theodore G. Chiricos and Charles Crawford; Zoann Snyder Joy; Roland Chilton, Raymond Teske, and Harald Arnold; Pamela Irving Jackson; and Darnell F. Hawkins
Many studies during the past few decades have sought to determine whether the death penalty has any deterrent effect on homicide rates. Researchers have reached widely varying, even contradictory, conclusions. Some studies have concluded that the threat of capital punishment deters murders, saving large numbers of lives; other studies have concluded that executions actually increase homicides; still others, that executions have no effect on murder rates. Commentary among researchers, advocates, and policymakers on the scientific validity of the findings has sometimes been acrimonious. Against this backdrop, the National Research Council report Deterrence and the Death Penalty assesses whethe...
This volume describes the findings of a longitudinal, birth cohort study of juvenile delinquency in Puerto Rico. Carried out under the auspices of the Puerto Rican Senate's Special Crime Commission, the book represents a new type of birth cohort study, based on the classic work done in Philadelphia. The authors have traced Puerto Rican children born in 1970, both male and female, through the greater San Juan police departments, charting the incidence of delinquency and the number of recurring offenders. These findings are compared to the Philadelphia studies of 1945 and 1958. The book begins its examination with a discussion of the background for the current study. Literature on juvenile del...
Delinquency in a Birth Cohort, published in 1972, was the first criminologi cal birth cohort study in the United States. Nils Christie, in Unge norske lovorertredere, had done the first such study as his dissertation at the University of Oslo in 1960. Professor Thorsten Sellin was the inspiration for the U.S. study. He could read Norwegian, and I could a little because I studied at the University of Oslo in my graduate years. Our interest in pursuing a birth cohort study in the United States was fostered by the encouragement of Saleem Shah who awarded us a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to begin our birth cohort studies at the University of Pennsylvania by investigating the delinquency of the 1945 cohort. We studied this group of 9,945 boys extensively through official criminal history and school records of their juvenile years. Subsequently, we followed up the cohort as adults using both adult arrest histories and an interview of a sample of the cohort. Our follow-up study was published as From Boy to Man, From Delinquen cy to Crime in 1987.