CRIMINAL CAREER RESEARCH: ITS VALUE FOR CRIMINOLOGY*

In a recent paper published in this journal, Gottfredson and Hirschi (1986)¹ argue that the concepts of criminal careers, career criminals, selective incapacitation, prevalence, and incidence, and longitudinal studies all have little value for criminology. In our view their paper misrepresents these concepts and our research on these topics. We are pleased to have the opportunity in this paper to develop these concepts more clearly and to show their relevance for criminology.     

DENSITY, DELINQUENCY, AND DESIGN Formal and Informal Control and the Built Environment

This study reviews the literature concerning the general impact of the physical environment on social disorganization, crime, and juvenile delinquency, with a specific focus on the relationship between household density, building density-design, and juvenile delinquency. Two perspectives on control are shown to have developed in an environmental context. One emphasizes the capacity of the built environment to impair informal social control, and the other focuses on the attraction of the same environments for agents of formal social control (the police). A path model is presented. showing that building density-design is an independent predictor of marijuana use and supporting the view that the physical environment can affect informal control. The model also shows that building density-design is a significant predictor of police presence. thus giving empirical support to the notion that the physical environment can affect formal control.     

Principals in Practice: The Importance of Mentorship in the Early Stages of Career Development

In this article we empirically assess the benefits of mentorship across a diverse range of extrinsic and intrinsic career rewards. Using an integrated model, we investigate the ways in which characteristics of the organization, as well as characteristics of both protégés and mentors affect the outcomes of mentoring relationships. Our study includes two samples: new law school graduates and a more seasoned cohort of established lawyers. Our results reveal the unique contributions of career and psychosocial mentor functions to early and established careers, as well as the substantial rewards of informal and multiple mentors to the career paths of professionals.     

MAKING WAR CRIMINAL

Turk's conflict theory of political criminality is used to account for the virtual cessation of international criminal law enforcement following the Nuremberg Tribunal and its revival through the establishment of The Hague Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Turk's theory further helps to contextualize the little known contribution of Sheldon Glueck to the development of the Nuremberg Trials. Glueck helped overcome Soviet wishes to turn Nuremberg into a show trial and developed the organizational plan for the visual and witness evidence of the Holocaust that led to the most important convictions for crimes against humanity in the Nuremberg Trials. The contributions of Glueck and Turk provide an underappreciated foundation for the criminological study of war crimes and crimes against humanity.