In the history of criminology, few studies have been as impactful as the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study, which aimed to prevent delinquency in young, underprivileged boys.
In his new book, “Between Medicine and Criminology: Richard Cabot and the Making of the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study,” Steven Zane, of Florida State University’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, examines the study, its impact and its implications for future research.
“It was the first evaluation of a crime prevention program and it is also highly rigorous,” said Zane, an assistant professor in the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice. “The amount of data gathered fueled study for decades after.”
Work on the study began in 1935, offering Zane and his co-authors, Brandon Welsh of Northeastern University and Scott Podolsky of Harvard Medical School, decades of archival materials with which to work.
The Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study was led by Richard Clarke Cabot, a professor of medicine and social ethics at Harvard University and was the first of its kind to use randomized controlled experimentation. Cabot sought to test his idea that adult role models could help prevent bad behavior, including delinquency, among at risk youth. In doing so, Cabot was engaged in what is now called developmental criminology.
Initially the study included 650 boys aged 5 to 13 years. Participants in the treatment group were paired with mentors who provided counsel, similar to outreach groups like Big Brothers today.
Unfortunately, subsequent work revealed one of the study’s more well-known findings: that the treatment group did not fare any better than the control group on several key outcomes. Still, the study allowed for decades of subsequent research that would establish a sound research base for the focus of family-based developmental crime prevention programs.
“One incredible thing Cabot did was that he collected so much information in the treatment arm of the project, that there have been decades of research completed about the treatment group alone, tracing their lives through the years,” Zane said.
While Cabot’s study serves as an example for its rigor and attention to detail, it also stands out due to its lack of those scientific virtues in other respects, Zane said.
“It’s a tragic irony of the study that it was so meticulously planned for years and included hundreds of hours of data collection on the boys prior to intervention but, after all that detailed planning, the intervention itself was incredibly unstructured,” he said. “Ultimately the intervention saw the counselors sort of doing what they wanted.”
Decades of study later, Zane said the study has had a profound impact on criminology and, on balance, still serves as a positive example for researchers in the field.
“If Cabot could design such a rigorous experiment in the late 1930s, it should give us no excuse to settle for less a century later,” he said. “Today’s studies should strive to look like the Cambridge study.” High-quality research designs like randomized controlled trials, Zane added, allow policymakers, researchers, and the public at-large to have increased confidence in the reported effects of an intervention (whatever those effects may be).
“Between Medicine and Criminology: Richard Cabot and the Making of the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study,” is published by Oxford University Press. For more information, visit criminology.fsu.edu.