Suchergebnisse

This article comments on the article by Sampson and Laub in this issue. It congratulates them on locating and interviewing at approximately age seventy a large proportion of the survivors of the Glueck and Glueck (1968) study. It also points out problems, some resulting from the impact of privacy regulations. Other problems arose from the age of the subjects at follow-up, resulting in half being already deceased; from askingmento explain their desistance from crime, when they may not understand it themselves; and from the methods of testing childhood predictors of desistance. The study results apply only to serious juvenile delinquents and cannot be assumed to generalize to crime in general, including that which begins later and includes white-collar criminals. Preliminary studies to serve as the basis for such a broad approach are suggested.

This article comments on the article by Sampson and Laub in this issue. It congratulates them on locating and interviewing at approximately age seventy a large proportion of the survivors of the Glueck and Glueck (1968) study. It also points out problems, some resulting from the impact of privacy regulations. Other problems arose from the age of the subjects at follow-up, resulting in half being already deceased; from asking men to explain their desistance from crime, when they may not understand it themselves; and from the methods of testing childhood predictors of desistance. The study results apply only to serious juvenile delinquents and cannot be assumed to generalize to crime in general, including that which begins later and includes white-collar criminals. Preliminary studies to serve as the basis for such a broad approach are suggested. References. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright 2005 The American Academy of Political and Social Science.]

A follow-up study of 524 former child-guidance clinic patients & 100 normal control subjects provides an unusual opportunity for studying diff's among 3 groups: (1) subjects who willingly cooperated with requests for a life history interview, (2) subjects who cooperated only after postponements & indecisiveness, & (3) subjects who refused the interview. Since a variety of records concerning both childhood behavior & adult adjustment of these subjects had been collected, it was possible to compare them with respect to variables not ordinarily available in survey res. The 10% of subjects who cooperated only after postponements & indecisiveness were distinguished from cooperative subjects only by being more often local (ie, living in the city which served as headquarters for the study). The 16% who initially refused were also found to come disproportionately from the local group, & were as well persons of low educ, with routine white collar occup's, & foreign-born parents. No signif diff's were found between the 27% of initial refusers finally persuaded to cooperate & the remaining refusers. Ex-patients, with a high rate of both psychiatric disease & serious antisoc behavior, appeared no more difficult to interview about their life histories than control subjects. Subjects reluctant to be interviewed appeared to give as valid interviews as the cooperative subjects, as judged by information obtained from police, Sch, & soc agency records. AA.

This review of sociologically relevant alcohol research addresses definitions of alcohol problems, describes patterns and trends in adult drinking practices and problems and correlates of alcoholism, and describes social policy responses to alcohol. With implications for many measures of social wellbeing, alcohol research is relevant to almost all areas of traditional sociological interest, intersecting with religious and ethnic studies, with studies of social change and social movements, with theories of social control, with criminology and social deviance, with media research and analysis of social organizations, with study of age and gender roles, with medical sociology, and with sociology of the work place. Sociologically relevant alcohol research of the last few years, while rich in the above areas, is by no means exhausted and holds great potential to illuminate issues of general interest to sociologists as well as to specialists in medical sociology or deviance.