An Overview of the Symposium and Some Next Steps

This article identifies some overarching issues raised at the Albany Symposium on Developmental Criminology, with particular focus on important issues in conflict. In developing theory in this very complex area, there is tension between a parsimonious theory with a limited number of constructs and richer description that tries to capture more critical features. It seems that one concept is too limiting. The debate over the benefits of identifying subgroups in a population will depend on the analytical context; those groups can be identified empirically (say, by trajectory analysis) or a priori theoretical conceptualization. There is a need for greater interaction across the variety of rich data sets and scholars' perspectives that could be facilitated with greater data sharing, particularly by bringing in new methodological skills. Also, there is a need for a developmental criminology forum to address some common agreed-upon questions with several of the rich data sets represented at the symposium.