What exactly is self-control, and what life outcomes does it affect? What causes a person to have high or low self-control to begin with? What effect does self-control have on crime and other harmful behavior?
Using a clear, conversational writing style, Self-Control and Crime Over the Life Course answers critical questions about self-control and its importance for understanding criminal behavior. Authors Carter Hay and Ryan Meldrum use intuitive examples to draw attention to the close connection between self-control and the behavioral choices people make, especially in reference to criminal, deviant, and harmful behaviors that often carry short-term benefits but long-term costs. The text builds an overall theoretical perspective that conveys the multi-disciplinary nature of modern-day self-control research. Moreover, far from emphasizing only theoretical issues, the authors place public policy at the forefront, using self-control research to inform policy efforts that reduce the societal costs of low self-control and the behaviors it enables.
Carter Hay is a professor and the director of graduate studies in the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Texas at Austin in 1999. His articles, chapters, and books have focused on the causes and consequences of crime and deviance over the life course, with a special focus on self-control and its early in life precursors.
Dr. Ryan C. Meldrum is an Associate Professor and the Director of Research and Communications in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida International University. He received his B.S. in Sociology from Oregon State University and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Criminology from Florida State University. His research foci encompass various aspects of juvenile delinquency and young adult offending, with his current work concentrated in three areas: the causes and consequences of low self-control, the health consequences of a lack of sleep among teenagers, and racial and ethnic disparities in school discipline and juvenile justice sanctioning among youth. His research has been published in outlets including Criminology, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Justice Quarterly, Journal of Criminal Justice, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Criminal Justice and Behavior, Crime & Delinquency, Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Sleep Health, Intelligence, and Preventive Medicine. He also co-authored the book Self-Control and Crime over the Life Course. For his research contributions as a junior scholar, he was awarded the 2016 Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS) New Scholar Award. 
