Saving Children from a Life of Crime : Early Risk Factors and Effective Interventions: Early Risk Factors and Effective InterventionsAfter decades of rigorous study in the United States and across the Western world, a great deal is known about the early risk factors for offending. High impulsiveness, low attainment, criminal parents, parental conflict, and growing up in a deprived, high-crime neighborhood are among the most important factors. There is also a growing body of high quality scientific evidence on the effectiveness of early prevention programs designed to prevent children from embarking on a life of crime. Drawing on the latest evidence, Saving Children from a Life of Crime is the first book to assess the early causes of offending and what works best to prevent it. Preschool intellectual enrichment, child skills training, parent management training, and home visiting programs are among the most effective early prevention programs. Criminologists David Farrington and Brandon Welsh also outline a policy strategy--early prevention--that uses this current research knowledge and brings into sharper focus what America's national crime fighting priority ought to be. At a time when unacceptable crime levels in America, rising criminal justice costs, and a punitive crime policy have spurred a growing interest in the early prevention of delinquency, Farrington and Welsh here lay the groundwork for change with a comprehensive national prevention strategy to save children from a life of crime. |
Contents
Introduction The Need for Early Prevention | 9 |
Early Risk and Protective Factors | 15 |
Understanding Risk and Protective Factors | 17 |
Individual Factors | 37 |
Family Factors | 55 |
Socioeconomic Peer School and Community Factors | 77 |
Prevention in the Early Years | 91 |
Understanding RiskFocused Prevention | 93 |
Family Prevention | 121 |
Peer School and Community Prevention | 137 |
Toward a National Strategy | 157 |
Never Too Early A Comprehensive National Prevention Strategy | 159 |
Notes | 175 |
181 | |
223 | |
Individual Prevention | 105 |
Common terms and phrases
Adolescent adult African American antisocial behavior assessed benefits boys Brandon Cambridge Study chapter Chicago child abuse child-rearing cognitive colleagues control group convicted cost-benefit analysis crime prevention criminal Criminology daycare delinquency and later delinquency or later Development Developmental drug early intervention effect size effective in preventing empathy evaluation evidence-based experimental family factors Farrington Farrington and Welsh focus focused follow-up Gerald Patterson Gottfredson Health High/Scope home visiting important included individual Journal Justice Juvenile later offending Longitudinal Study low intelligence Magda Stouthamer-Loeber males McCord measured Mednick mentoring meta-analysis methods Michael Rutter Moffitt mothers neighborhood outcomes parent education parent management training peer Pittsburgh Youth Study predictors preventing delinquency protective factors Psychology randomized experiment rates Richard E risk and protective risk factors risk-focused prevention Rolf Loeber significantly skills training social statistical conclusion validity systematic review targeted tend theory Thornberry tion Tremblay types violence Welsh