The latter part of the 20th century saw a tremendous burgeoning of information about the causes, course, and consequences of delinquent careers. During this period, our knowledge about the epidemiology of delinquency and crime, risk and protective factors for this type of behavior, etiological theories, and life-course consequences of adolescent deviance expanded exponentially. All of these topics were examined from multidisciplinary perspectives and the rate at which our knowledge base expanded was revolutionary
