John H. Laub is an American criminologist best known for his work in life-course criminology and his long-standing collaboration with Robert J. Sampson. He served as Director of the U.S. National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and is a Distinguished Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland. Laub’s research has significantly shaped the understanding of how life events and social institutions influence criminal behavior over time.
Laub is co-author of Crime in the Making (1993), a landmark work that revived and modernized life-course theory by integrating longitudinal data with theoretical insights from control theory and structural sociology. Drawing on the Glueck data from 1930s Boston, Laub and Sampson developed a model in which social bonds—such as marriage, employment, and military service—act as turning points that can redirect criminal trajectories. Their work emphasizes human agency, the importance of context, and the potential for change across the life span. Life-course criminology has become a major paradigm in contemporary research, policy, and rehabilitation theory.
Interview
This video interview was conducted as part of the Oral History of Criminology Project. In this conversation, John Laub reflects on his influential research with Robert Sampson, the development of the Age-Graded Theory of informal social control, and his experiences bridging research and public policy.
Key Works
Sampson, R. J., & Laub, J. H. (1993). Crime in the Making: Pathways and Turning Points Through Life. Harvard University Press.
Laub, J. H., & Sampson, R. J. (2003). Shared Beginnings, Divergent Lives: Delinquent Boys to Age 70. Harvard University Press.
