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What exactly is self-control, and what life outcomes does it affect? What causes a person to have high or low self-control to begin with? What effect does self-control have on crime and other harmful behavior? Using a clear, conversational writing style, Self-Control and Crime Over the Life Course answers critical questions about self-control and its importance for understanding criminal behavior. Authors Carter Hay and Ryan Meldrum use intuitive examples to draw attention to the close connection between self-control and the behavioral choices people make, especially in reference to criminal, deviant, and harmful behaviors that often carry short-term benefits but long-term costs. The text builds an overall theoretical perspective that conveys the multi-disciplinary nature of modern-day self-control research. Moreover, far from emphasizing only theoretical issues, the authors place public policy at the forefront, using self-control research to inform policy efforts that reduce the societal costs of low self-control and the behaviors it enables.

Social intervention by governments in liberal democracies faces two major problems. The first is that it tends to reward the majority at the expense of the weak; there is no agreed way to trade-off the claims of different groups on a limited pool of resources, so it comes down to political muscle. The second is that support for intervention depends on a continuing flow of new resources, to fix each new problem while still preserving the interests of existing clients - and as a result, subsidies and controls multiply, despite the fact that they often pursue conflicting goals. In the early days of the British welfare state these dilemmas were resolved by shared assumptions that were fundamentally illiberal, excluding some groups altogether and enabling a clear pecking order amongst the rest. By the end of the century these narratives had largely been rejected. What happened was not a collapse in the fact of collective provision (which continued to grow) but a collapse in the narrative by which it was understood. Unable to resist popular pressure to spend more, governments were also unable to build the public confidence necessary to persuade taxpayers to pay for what they wanted. The easiest course of action was to give in to vested interests; to fund as much as possible by borrowing, on and off the balance sheet; and once the money started to run out, to give in to the most powerful groups, and to pay proportionately less attention to the less vocal.

THIS ARTICLE ARGUES THAT LOOKING TO THE EUROPEAN UNION FOR LEADERSHIP IN THE RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT IN THE BALKANS IS AN EXERCISE IN WISHFUL THINKING. IT OBSERVES THAT THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION MAY OR MAY NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBLITY, BUT EUROPE IS INCAPABLE OF ASSUMING IT. IF THE SERBIAN CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY DOCUMENTED BY THE U.N.'S WAR CRIME TRIBUNAL GO UNPUNISHED, OR, EVEN WORSE, ARE REWARDED BY ACCESSION TO THE FRUITS OF THOSE CRIMES, THEN HUMANITY WILL AGAIN GIVE UP HARD-WON GROUND TO BARBARISM. IF AMERICA CANNOT OR WILL NOT LEAD, THE CONSEQUENCES OF THAT FAILURE WILL HAUNT THE WORLD FOR YEARS TO COME.