Wolfgant tracks crime in society

For Criminology and Law Professor Marvin Wolfgang, the recent outbreak of violent crimes committed by juveniles is an unfortunate confirmation of his empirical research. "The public polls show that crime is one of the most serious problems people are concerned about, even more than health reform," Wolfgang said in an interview this week. "Crime in general has gone down, but what has gone up is juvenile crime, and juvenile violence with assault weapons," he added. Wolfgang, called "the most influential criminologist in the English-speaking world" by the British Journal of Criminology last spring, has been teaching at the University for 42 years. During his tenure, the Criminology Department has grown from "a series of courses in the Sociology Department" to an important subsection of the Wharton School's Legal Studies Department. Currently, Wolfgang is director of the University's Sellin Center for Studies in Criminology and Criminal Law, named for his mentor and predecessor Thorsten Sellin. He teaches undergraduate courses in introductory criminology and white-collar crime, as well as advanced seminars in criminology research and theory. And he holds a joint appointment at the Law School, where his seminars tackle the topic of criminal justice. Wolfgang's work at the University centers around the Sellin Center's longitudinal studies of segments of the population born in specific years, called "birth cohorts." Two such studies have been conducted in Philadelphia, tracing the development of males born in 1945 and males and females born in 1958, to determine overall rates of juvenile delinquency in society. "China is now using our work as a basis for longitudinal study of children born in 1973," he said. "We're following them up -- they're now 21 -- to see how many of them have a juvenile record, how many of them have criminal careers. "To me, it's one of the most exciting things I could do, to have a delinquency study in the most populous country in the world," he added. Wolfgang also collects and analyzes data about the incidence of crime on campus and in the world at-large. His research reveals that violent crime has become more "random" in recent years, as homicides between "intimates and family members" give way to car-jackings and drive-by shootings. "I think the major factors associated with the increase in violent crime among young people between 15 and 24 are two things: the availability of guns and drugs," Wolfgang said. "The only thing we can do is be more protective and more conscious of what's going on." He said the University is not alone in its susceptibility to criminal activity -- crime rates are high at Yale, Columbia and Michigan State Universities, and the Universities of Michigan and Chicago. But, Wolfgang said new federal sentencing guidelines -- including mandatory sentencing laws and the crime bill's "Three strikes and you're out" provision -- are not the panacea for the crime problem. "Most violent crimes are committed by persons between 15 and 24, so if we put three-time offenders away for life, we're going to have a geriatric prison population," he said. College senior Mark LoSasso, who took Wolfgang's introductory course last spring, said that while he thinks the class was interesting, some of Wolfgang's ideas seem "dated" and "a little old-fashioned." "It was obvious that he knew his material," LoSasso said. "I just question the way he teaches it." For Wolfgang, however, an approach that is rooted in the past continues to be the best way to solve the problems of crime. "If I were the Mustafa Mond of the brave new world, I would put more and more money into a Head Start program," Wolfgang said. Such a program -- pioneered by the Johnson administration in the 1960s -- reduces delinquency by 25 percent and increases high school graduation and college matriculation rates, he said. "You have to start early with high-risk kids," Wolfgang added.