Aim: To investigate the inflence of life events and how anti- social and offending behaviour can be due to the inflence of family.
Method and participants: longitudinal study over 40 years with interviews (self-reports). 411 boyrs aged 8 - 9 from the East End of London taken from the registers of 6 State schools. Mainly from a white working class.
Procedure: Boys were interviewed and tested at school and in their own homes. Parents and school teachers were also asked about the boys. The study concluded with 93% of the study being finally intervied at the age of 48.
Results: He found that offences peaked around the age of 17. Those who started criminal careers early were nearly all reconvicted and committed average 9 crimes. 7% of these early offenders were defined as chronic offenders(persistors), and accounted for 50% of the crime in the study. Most of the chronic offenders shared childhood characteristics (risk factors), for example, a convicted parent, delinquent sibling, young mother. By the time the boys reached 48years old, 88% had given up on crime.
Conclusion: crime runs in families and starts early. Therefore help programmes should begin with yound children and young parents should recieve help.
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