Project on Human Development Chicago Neighborhoods

This is the new official Twitter for the PHDCN+, a longitudinal multi-cohort study of children from Chicago started in 1995 and followed through 2021. Follow us here and on our website (sites.harvard.edu/phdcn/) for updates about the data and findings.

Two new interviews with Prof Robert J. Sampson about his book "Marked by Time" are out now. On WBEZ Chicago, "Is ‘when we are’ who we are?": wbez.org/say-more-with-…. On the "Talk Nerdy" podcast, "Societal Change and Criminology w/ Robert J. Sampson": carasantamaria.com/podcast/robert….

In @VitalCityNYC, a new article about Professor Robert J. Sampson's book, Marked by Time: "Criminal Risk Assessment and the Character Trap." Check it out here: vitalcitynyc.org/articles/how-b…

"Marked by Time" is @NextBigIdeaClub's Book of the Day. Check out "When You Were Born Matters More Than You Think," which has five key insights from the book, here: bookoftheday.nextbigideaclub.com/p/when-you-wer…

From the @BostonGlobe on Professor Robert Sampson’s newest book, Marked by Time: "A surprising theory for why some people become criminals." Check out the article by @abdallah_fayyad here: bostonglobe.com/2026/02/16/opi…

The Harvard Gazette has published a Q&A with Professor Robert Sampson about his perspective on the trends in policing and prediction outlined in his newest book, "Marked by Time." Check out the article here: news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/…

I wrote about Robert Sampson’s new book, “Marked by Time,” and how your likelihood to commit a crime has a lot to do with the year you were born—perhaps more than other contributing factors, including your socioeconomic background or level of self-control.bostonglobe.com/2026/02/16/opi…

@Harvard_Press @GunResearch @OJPNIJ @ASAnews @isa_sociology @ASCRM41 @ABFResearch @HarvardSoc @Harvard

@Harvard_Press Risk tools trained on one birth cohort drastically overpredict the next. Thirty years of Chicago data reveal: when we're born matters as much as who we are. Out now: amazon.com/Marked-Time-Tr…

Can children with the same background have radically different futures just because they were born a few years apart? Yes. Marked by Time (@Harvard_Press) shows how social change and the "character trap" reshape lives in ways traditional risk models miss. (1/2)

In a new paper with @RussellSageFdn, Robert J. Sampson assesses key research issues in racial inequalities in criminal justice, then outlines a future research agenda to better understand and potentially reduce these inequalities: rsfjournal.org/content/11/3/1

@ScienceAdvances See also: Independent commentary on the study written by Justin Lucas Sola, also available in Science Advances at science.org/doi/10.1126/sc….

New in @ScienceAdvances from @PHDCN_Study: 2/3 of people who ever carried guns began in adulthood, and their patterns of carrying differ greatly from those who began carrying in adolescence. Open access at science.org/doi/10.1126/sc… #ScienceAdvancesResearch

New research based on a 25-year longitudinal study shows how early-life differences lead to lifelong racial inequalities in arrest. Check out the paper by PHDCN+ team members Robert Sampson and Roland Neil here: doi.org/10.1111/1745-9….

Check out commentary by Rob Sampson and @cclanfear about the nature of gun ownership in the US in the context of recent societal changes jamanetwork.com/journals/jaman…

Fantastic new article by PHDCN+ team members looking at the effect of a sibling’s criminal legal contact on an individual’s later well-being.

“Adult Children of the Prison Boom”: Wildeman et al. unite “the classic literature on the intergenerational transmission of criminal activity w/ the nascent lit on the collateral consequences of mass incarceration.” @DukeSociology @DukeSanford @HarvardSoc ow.ly/uP2m50Qsa2J

You can learn more about this presentation and the research behind it on the LSE Player podcast episode @LSEpublicevents @LSE_US lse.ac.uk/lse-player?id=…

If you missed Professor Sampson's presentation on The Birth Lottery of History at the #LSEFestival, you can watch it now! youtube.com/watch?v=4hqEC_… @LSEpublicevents @LSE_US

Today! 6:30PM London/1:30PM Eastern, in person and online

Next Thursday, in person and online, Professor Sampson will be speaking on 'The Birth Lottery of History' for the London School of Economics festival on People and Change! @LSEpublicevents lse.ac.uk/Events/LSE-Fes…