Books by Robert J. Sampson

Based on one of the most ambitious studies in the history of social science, this title argues that communities still matter because life is decisively shaped by where you live. It discovers that neighborhoods influence a remarkably wide variety of social phenomena, including crime, health, civic engagement, home foreclosures, and teen births.

Based on the re-analysis of Sheldon and Eleanor Gluecks' mid-century study of 500 delinquents and 500 non-delinquents from childhood to adulthood, this informal social control theory accepts the importance of childhood behaviour but rejects the idea that adult social factors have little relevance.