Reviews 59
helping them learn to value the intrinsic pro-
cess of learning and competing for the sake of
personal development. If children are learn-
ing that winning is the most important thing
and that winning does not come easily or
often, they may become so discouraged that
they drop out, which may jeopardize the
ability to bounce back from a loss and try
again, a skill emphasized by parents.
Childrens responses also indicate that
while parents may be focused on inculcating
skills that will help them become successful
adults, children are focused on becoming
successful children, namely by cultivating
a sense of belonging among their peers.
While the adults in their lives may be
focused on ranking and sorting them and
urging them to be the very best, young child-
rens responses reflect more relational
values, ones that place greater emphasis on
befriending children from other schools,
supporting the talents of friends and team-
mates, and experiencing wins and losses as
a group. Levey Friedman wonders if the
impulse to avoid the pressures of individual
competition works against the ability to learn
to be comfortable with individualized evalu-
ations, another key skill that parents empha-
size. These moments of disconnect between
parents intentions and childrens experi-
ences contribute to an understanding of chil-
dren as active participants and co-creators of
the social world around them, rather than an
understanding of children as passive recipi-
ents of adult decisions.
Playing to Win provides a systematic
examination of the motivations and parent-
ing strategies of affluent parents, as well as
the structure and content of three competi-
tive, organized childrens activities. Howev-
er, it is much more difficult to deliver as
effective an analysis of the potential conse-
quences of this type of pathway consump-
tion for the children in the study. As Levey
Friedman notes, it is difficult to know
whether parents strategies will yield the
intended long-term outcomes. Despite this
understandable limitation, there are empiri-
cal claims that feel less robustly supported
by the data than others and topics that are
not directly addressed. For example, while
generalist parents claimed that involving
children in an array of activities helped chil-
dren learn to balance multiple commitments,
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manage a schedule, and prepare their equip-
ment at home in advance of competitions,
there is scant evidence in the text to support
the claim that this is what children are actual-
ly doing for themselves. Rather, the data sug-
gest that parents do much of this work for
their children. There is also a missed oppor-
tunity to address the link between these high-
ly privatized investments in particular chil-
dren and the large-scale public disinvest-
ment in children as a whole. The historical
overview of the evolution of childrens activ-
ities has the potential to speak to the way
that proper care has shifted away from
being perceived as a collective responsibility,
but the message that children are increasing-
ly perceived as a privatized good rather than
a social one remains implied.
From Juvenile Delinquency to Adult Crime:
Criminal Careers, Justice Policy, and
Prevention, edited by Rolf Loeber and
David P. Farrington. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2012. 399 pp. $29.95
paper. ISBN: 9780199828180.
SCOTT DECKER
Arizona State University
Scott.Decker@asu.edu
Amid the plethora of edited volumes in soci-
ology, Juvenile Delinquency and Adult Crime
stands out for the quality and originality of
the chapters, the focus on a central theme,
and the depth of most of the chapters. It is
a rare collection of essays in criminology
today that combines these qualities. The
book succeeds in part because of the reputa-
tion and experience of the two editors of this
volume, Rolf Loeber and David Farrington.
They have lined up many of the authors
whose work has defined these areas of
research, policy, and theory over the past
generation of scholars. Rather than simply
rehashing past work, the contributors to
this volume have generated new perspec-
tives on life course transitions from youth
crime to adult crime. The editors provide
both an introduction and a concluding chap-
ter that provide useful context to the book.
The latter includes policy recommendations
that are firmly embedded in the empirical
and theoretical cores of the volume. These
Contemporary Sociology 45, 1
60 Reviews
chapters are important additions to the vol-
ume and tie the package up quite nicely in
the end.
Three chapters stand out among the contri-
butions. First, Alex R. Piquero, J. David
Hawkins, and Lila Kazemian take on the
question of patterns in criminal careers. Their
chapter assesses many of the key datasets
that examine developmental criminology
and identifies their strengths and weaknesses
as well as their use in the field. The key terms
of the fieldfrequency, continuity, and adult
onsetare identified and discussed. In addi-
tion, this chapter is particularly strong in its
discussion of role transitions, including spe-
cialization and diversity in criminal activity
as well as escalation. The chapter identified
one of the shortcomings in much work on
developmental criminology: the role of sta-
bility and change. While change is the modal
character of criminal activity, it is equally
important to identify and describe stability.
The chapter does a masterful job in this
regard. Equally strong is the discussion of
co-offending. Criminals act together: often
they are not very well organized, but they
co-offend far more often than they act indi-
vidually. Noting the foundational work of
Joan McCord and Al Reiss, Piquero and his
colleagues lay out the strengths, gaps, and
future directions of this research. This is
a chapter which should be read high and
low, far and wide.
Criminologists and practitioners alike
have an interest in prediction and in risk
and needs assessment. In Chapter Six, Robert
D. Hoge, Gina M. Vincent, and Laura S. Guy
address these issues not as separate topics
but as the interrelated theoretical and empir-
ical concepts that they are. The chapter
situates these discussions in the context of
the consequences of decisions about each of
these assessments. There are real-life conse-
quences to such decisions: children receive
placements, youth are diverted (or not),
adults lose custody of children, prisoners
are placed in higher levels of security. This
chapter reviews the evidence regarding the
state of the art in prediction and assessment
against the context of these real-life circum-
stances. The chapter also addresses the very
difficult issue of mental health variables in
the context of assessment. These variables
are problematic because of measurement
Contemporary Sociology 45, 1
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and control. This chapter highlights the
dilemmas in understanding these issues
and places them in a broader context. Per-
haps the most useful feature of the chapter,
and one that may prove to be the most useful
section of the book, is the assessment of var-
ious risk factors in Table 6.1. This table is suc-
cinct and direct, and it will prove useful to
veterans of developmental criminology as
well as those new to the field. Given the fact
that there is a large body of work in this
area of research and practice, there have
been meta-analyses. This chapter assesses
the results of this work in a way that is tech-
nically competent but approachable for a gen-
eral audience.
Chapter Nine asks, What works? To
their credit, Loeber and Farrington have
assembled the A-team to address this
question. Meta-analysts, evaluators, pro-
gram designers, practitioners with impec-
cable research credentials, and public health
experts combine on this chapter. They assess
the evidence from the strongest possible
testsrandomized control tests and rigorous
quasi-experimental tests. They have high
standards for the research they report and
provide the reader with a solid description
of the methodology they use to draw their
conclusions. This transparency of method
only adds to the credibility of their conclu-
sions. The discussion of program effects
are divided by domain: family, school, indi-
vidual, labor market, and restorative justice.
There is a welcome discussion of the differ-
ence in assessments of program effect for
juveniles and adults. This is a section of the
chapter that all program evaluators should
read carefully. Given the developmental
focus of the book, it is important to note
that not only do delinquency and criminal
involvement change across the life course,
but program effect changes across the life
course as well. There is a review of four spe-
cific program types (cognitive, educational/
employment, drug treatment, and treatment
for sex offenders) with regard to their effec-
tiveness. The chapter includes a solid discus-
sion of cost-benefit analyses in terms that
practitioners can understand and appreciate.
Table 9.1 is the gem of the chapter. It presents
costs and benefits of seventeen different
interventions targeted at juvenile and young
adult offenders. These are programs that

have been rigorously evaluated and offer
much promise to legislators, policy makers
and juvenile and criminal justice administra-
tors searching for solutions.
As with most edited volumes, it would
have been nice if there were more linkages
between the chapters. While each chapter
focuses on the transitions between juvenile
delinquency and adult crime, there is little
to link one chapter to another. This is unfor-
tunate as, in many respects, the chapters
inform each other, make complementary
points, and have the potential to develop
a synergy of knowledge about a particular
area of study. For example, the programmatic
chapter (Promoting Change, Changing
Lives) has a lot to build on from preceding
chapters. This was an opportunity lost.
Another quibble with the book, albeit a minor
one, is that the volume is short on graphics.
There are few charts, tables, or pictures to
illuminate the sometimes complex points
made throughout the text.
While this is a book that will be appreciat-
ed by those whose knowledge about devel-
opmental and life course criminology is sub-
stantial, it is also approachable for those with
less knowledge. It is an ideal complement to
a series of monographs for a graduate semi-
nar or perhaps an advanced undergraduate
course.
National Colors: Racial Classification and the
State in Latin America, by Mara Loveman.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
377 pp. $24.95 paper. ISBN: 9780199337361.
ANN MORNING
New York University
ann.morning@nyu.edu
Demographic statistics about the racial
make-up of the nation regularly garner pub-
lic attention in the United States, and even
Census Bureau classification procedures
can make headlines. Journalists and op-ed
writers amply covered the introduction of
multiple-race self-identification on the 2000
census and have already begun to weigh in
on the potential inclusion of a Hispanic or
Latino checkbox on the 2020 census race
question. Despite the attention they attract,
however, such revisions are basically tweaks
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Reviews 61
to a question that has inhabited the census
continuously since its inception in 1790, in
pretty much the same format for the last
150 years.
Much more sweeping changes have trans-
formed census-taking in Latin America, as
Mara Loveman makes amply clear in Nation-
al Colors. In particular, she introduces three
striking empirical puzzles that deserve seri-
ous attention from scholars of race, ethnicity,
demography, scientific knowledge, nation-
building, and historical and comparative
sociology. First, when the Iberian empires
gave way to the independent Latin Ameri-
can nations we recognize today, why did
these new states mostly retain the old colo-
nial census approach of enumerating people
by race, even as they rejected so many other
imperial trappings? Second, why did the
overwhelming majority of Spanish- and
Portuguese-speaking Latin American coun-
tries give up racial classification in the
mid-twentieth century? And finally, in yet
another sea change, why did the same
nations return to official ethnoracial enumer-
ation by the early twenty-first century?
Lovemans answers to these questions are
groundbreaking because she eschews the
usual national case-study approach to under-
standing official classification schemes.
Instead, she recognizes that focusing solely
on Bolivia or Argentina would miss a conti-
nent-wide movement that helps explain the
changes of statistical regime. Equally impor-
tant, she brings in international actors as
a crucial part of the story, whether in the guise
of international statistical congresses, multi-
lateral development organizations, potential
immigrants, race scientists, or an imagined
community of arbiters of national progress
and modernity. This widening of the scope
is accomplished through an extraordinary
analysis of ethnoracial classification in 19
Latin American nations over more than two
centuries, grounded in census questionnaires
and reports as well as a wide range of elite
commentary on enumeration and race from
within and beyond the western hemisphere.
In a project as ambitiously wide-ranging as
this, it is not surprising that the attention to
detail and depth of historical research that
characterizes so much of National Colors is
not evenly distributed throughout. This is
particularly apparent in the attention the
Contemporary Sociology 45, 1