Twenty years in the making: Revisiting Laub and Sampson’s version of life-course criminology

Using data on participants born around 100 years ago, Laub and Sampson asserted that early developmental risk factors are not informative of a person’s adult life outcomes. More specifically, they claimed that early risk factors were not informative of informal social control in adulthood, persistent offending, and the degree to which informal social control protects against later offending.” I offer a contemporary comparison point to these claims that carry theoretical implications for developmental and life-course criminology. I compare Laub and Sampson’s conclusions to my own conclusions based on analyses of data from the Incarcerated Serious and Violent Young Offender Study. In contrast to Laub and Sampson’s research, I argue that person-centered intervention strategies and trauma-informed practices that recognize the capacity for change are likely needed to help promote trajectories of offending desistance for some persons.