Prevention: Families and Schools

Abstract

As mentioned in Chapter 2, the discovery that a small number of high-rate offenders account for a disproportionate share of arrests for serious crimes has had a major impact in recent years on the direction of criminal justice policies and research interest (Greenwood and Abrahamse, 1982). The most frequently cited statistics from the study by Wolfgang and associates of the 1945 Philadelphia birth cohort revealed that 18% of the delinquents accounted for 71% of the homicides, 73% of the rapes, 70% of the robberies, 69% of the aggravated assaults, and 52% of all arrests experienced by the cohort (Wolfgang et al., 1972). Such statistics focus attention on crime careers and the possibility of reducing crime by identifying and incarcerating the high-rate offenders; at the same time, these data raise anew the possibility of, instead, identifying these offenders at a much earlier stage and undertaking preventive measures to produce more law-abiding behavior. Accordingly, in recent years a renewed search has been activated for reliable, early signs of a potential for serious and frequent delinquent conduct. Discovery of such indicators would encourage the development of prevention programs to redirect these tendencies.