Sheldon luck

Sheldon Glueck (born August 15, 1896 in Warsaw , Poland , then Russian Empire ; † March 10, 1980 in Cambridge , Massachusetts ) was an American criminologist who, together with his wife Eleanor Glueck , born Touroff (born April 12, 1898 in Brooklyn , New York , † September 25, 1972 in Cambridge , Massachusetts) formed a research team that made it internationally known with its biographical investigations and a forecast table developed from them, and is mentioned in all criminology textbooks .

Career

Sheldon Glueck came to the USA from Poland in 1903 and was naturalized in 1920. He studied at Georgetown University and Harvard University , where he received his MA and Ph.D. acquired. From 1925 until his retirement in 1963, Glueck taught as a professor of criminology at Harvard University. In 1933 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Eleanor Touroff graduated from a social work college in New York in 1921 . After her marriage to Sheldon Glueck (1922) she worked on criminological issues at Harvard University , where she received her doctorate in 1925 and was employed as a research professor from 1930. In 1960 she was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Joint work

From 1939 to 1963, the Glueck couple interviewed 1000 test persons (including 500 delinquents and 500 non-delinquents) between the ages of 10 and 17 from the Boston lower class in three survey waves , using quantitative and qualitative survey techniques. They came to the conclusion that incomplete families, the early change of parents, constant conflicts between parents and children or between parents, the family's dependency on welfare institutions, lack of attention (but also excessive care) and contradicting educational measures by the parents suggests a later criminal behavior of the children.

Based on these findings, the Gluecks developed a forecast table in which the individual crime-promoting factors are listed and weighted. However, this forecast table only proved to be reliable for extreme groups (suspicious recidivists and highly adapted people), precisely for those groups of people who can also be identified without a forecast table. Otherwise, the crime risk with Glueck's forecast method is overestimated.

The image of man on which the forecast tables are based was that of a stimulus-reaction machine from the times of simple behaviorism . The lucky ones assumed that one could recognize all factors of the origin of crime by adding up environmental influences. Despite the inadequacy of their prognostic table, the Gluecks have become something of a classic in criminology because they carried out the first major panel study to study delinquent behavior.

Follow-up examination by Sampson and Laub

Glueck's long-term study was re-examined in 2001 by criminologists John H. Laub and Robert J. Sampson . They identified the 230 still living test subjects from the delinquent cluster (originally 500), checked their criminal records and interviewed 52 of the now around 70-year-olds. Those of them who had dropped out of criminal careers in their lifetime named the following turning points : marriage ; Military service ( Korean War and occupation in Europe); Experiences in correctional homes; Moving out of a difficult neighborhood; steady work.

Some of the subjects died during the follow-up examination. It can thus be said that Glueck's panel study is the only longitudinal criminological study that covers the entire life cycle of the subjects.

Common writings of luck

• Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency (1950)
• Delinquents in the Making (1952)
• Physique and Delinquency (1956)
• Predicting Delinquency and Crime (1959)
• Family Environment and Delinquency (1962)
• Ventures in Criminology (1964)
• Delinquents and Nondelinquents in Perspective (1968)
• Toward a Topology of Juvenile Offenders: Implications for Therapy and Prevention (1970),
• Identification of Predelinquents (1972).

literature

• John H. Laub, Robert J. Sampson: Shared Beginnings, Divergent Lives. Delinquent Boys to Age 70. Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA et al. 2006, ISBN 0-674-01993-8 .
• Wolfgang Stelly, Jürgen Thomas: Once a criminal, always a criminal? Westdeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden 2001, ISBN 3-531-13665-8 .

Web links

• Christian Wickert: Summary of the multi-factor approach according to Sheldon Glueck & Eleanor Glueck , SozTheo .