It is very clear that criminal and antisocial parents tend to have criminal and antisocial children. However, little is known about the mechanisms (genetic or environmental) underlying this intergenerational transmission. This is because there have been surprisingly few large-scale prospective studies spanning two or more generations. This special issue brings together fi ve of the most important of these studies, conducted in the Netherlands, the UK and the USA.
There have also been few previous attempts to bring together different studies of the intergenerational transmission of antisocial behaviour. One of the most recent was the publication of a special section of the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology in 2003 (Capaldi et al., 2003). All of the four studies in that special section spanned three generations, and two of them (by Capaldi et al. and by Thornberry et al.) present results in this special issue.
Knowledge about intergenerational transmission has accumulated rather slowly. This is because conducting multigenerational studies is a costly and longwinded endeavour. The Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD), which started in 1961, has now accumulated an unrivalled wealth of information on 411 boys, their parents, their life courses and now also their offspring. The effort, however, has been tremendous. The same applies to the Rochester Youth Development Study (RYDS), a study which started 'only' in 1988, but has -with a different focus -the same depth and intensive measurements for a group of larger initial size. Retention of respondents is crucial in such studies and is often the most costly aspect. The Oregon Youth Study (OYS) started with a smaller sample, but has now followed-up to the third generation.
The Criminal Careers and Life-Course Study (CCLS) from the Netherlands spans two generations and has a much larger sample, but it has much less in-depth
Bijleveld and Farrington