Developmental Criminology needs to think about time

• In Event: Lightning Talk: What’s Wrong with Developmental and Biopsychosocial Criminology – And How Can We Put It Right?

Abstract

Thinking about time in developmental models of crime has been heavily shaped by the constraints of ‘waves’ in longitudinal studies. In reality, causal mechanisms happen on a continuum of time frames, from seconds to days, months and years to the macro time of generations, history and evolution. Too often, statistical models are fitted to longitudinal data that don’t capture this reality, and are not fit to test the questions we want to ask. We need a new generation of studies based on a more complex notion of time in developmental processes, and data that capture processes at difference size orders of time.

Author

• Manuel Eisner, University of Cambridge