TY - JOUR AU - Osgood, Wayne PY - 2010/04/26 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Crime and the Life Course JF - TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology JA - TRAILS VL - IS - SE - DO - UR - https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/crime-and-the-life-course-osgood SP - AB - One of the earliest and most consistent findings in all of social science is that crime rates vary enormously with age. Only in the last twenty years have criminologists devoted much attention to more deeply understanding the relationship between age and crime, and during that time it has come to be one of the most prominent topics of criminology. In this course we will review a variety of topics concerning the developmental or life span aspects of crime, such as the form of the age/ crime curve, the stability of offending or misbehavior, the study of criminal careers, effects of major transitions at different life stages, and the later consequences of youthful offending. We will also read a bit on life-span development more generally for insights from people outside of criminology.Below you will find the topics we will cover and the assigned readings for each week. Please regard the reading list as tentative, as it is likely to evolve a little over the course of the semester. When the list of reading is especially long, we will divide some of them among you. Most of the readings will be available on line, through either the university library, or, when I have an electronic copy that isn’t otherwise available, my own web site (http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/d/w/dwo1/). Items available only in hard copy I will put in the 9th floor computer lab. I’ll do that once every few weeks, and I’ll try to be at least a week ahead. I will also distribute a longer bibliography on crime and the life course as a starting point for your seminar papers and for your future reference. ER -