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The original study, 500 Criminal Careers, was of five hundred and one inmates of the Massachusetts Reformatory for Men. Four hundred fifty-four were still living at the beginning of this
second five-year follow-up investigation. The method utilized in this second pursuit is essentially the same as reported in Chapter V of 500 Criminal Careers, and in Appendix A of 500 Delinquent Women. Although the detail of the methodology of the present investigation is given only in relation to additions to or departures from the before-mentioned works, the complexity of the study and the evolutionary alignment of the authors' technique are somewhat indicated by the fact that 182 pages are allocated to appendices.
Twelve cases illustrative of reformation and non-reformation are cited and acknowledged to be mere sketches of some of the personality and behavior types that have entered into the more abstract statistical discussion. They are given toward the end of the book rather than earlier lest 'the reader might have gained a somewhat distorted impression of the underlying causes for reformation and recidivism, perhaps attributing them to factors which, in the statistical analysis, have been revealed as not of basic significance when the group is taken as a whole'. The authors quite properly conclude that they have presented 'only a segment, albeit a large one, of the life cycle of a group of offenders'. They contemplate further and necessary follow-up investigations and for the entire field of criminology would like to have undertaken careful investigations into the traits of 'problem children' and 'predelinquents', correlated with their subsequent evolution into criminals or non-criminals.
Once definitions have been made and the method agreed upon, it would seem that any statistical study could proceed, if closely watched, with distinction to all. Such is the false notion of the uninitiated and this specious fact the experienced Gluecks call attention to for 'the materia