Legacies of Crime
A Follow-Up of the Children of Highly Delinquent Girls and Boys

This book follows a cohort of seriously delinquent girls and boys over twenty years, documenting the effects of their criminal involvement on their children.

Peggy C. Giordano (Author)

9780521879712, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 26 February 2010

264 pages, 1 b/w illus. 6 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.56 kg

"This is an excellent study of how intergenerational transmission of crime or delinquency, as well as other risky behaviors, evolves and persists.... Highly recommended." - Choice

Legacies of Crime explores the lives of seriously delinquent girls and boys in the United States who were followed over a twenty-year period as they grew to adulthood. In-depth interviews with these women and men and their children - a majority now adolescents themselves - depict the adults' economic and social disadvantages and continued criminal involvement, and in turn the unique vulnerabilities of their children. Giordano identifies family dynamics that foster the intergenerational transmission of crime, violence, and drug abuse, rejecting the notion that such continuities are based solely on genetic similarities or even lax, inconsistent parenting. The author breaks new ground in directly exploring - and in the process revising - the basic tenets of classic social learning theories, and confronting the complications associated with the parent's gender. Legacies of Crime also identifies factors associated with resilience in the face of what is often a formidable package of risks favoring intergenerational continuity.

1. Introduction
2. Literature review and conceptual framework
3. The Ohio Life Course study
4. OLS adult respondents: offending, surviving, parenting
5. How have the OLS children fared?
6. The intergenerational transmission process
7. 'Success stories': it's all relative
8. Theoretical and policy implications of the OLS study.

Subject Areas: Personal & social issues: family issues [Children's / Teenage YXF], Family & relationships [VFV], Juvenile offenders [JKVQ2], Crime & criminology [JKV], Social services & welfare, criminology [JK], Sociology: family & relationships [JHBK], Population & demography [JHBD]