Background In July of 1992, approximately sixty scholars and researchers met for a week at the "Fritz Erler Akademie" in Freudenstadt, Germany, to participate in a workshop entitled "Cross-National Lon­ gitudinal Research on Human Development and Criminal Behavior". The participants represented 15 nations and 45 universities and research centers. Although longitudinal research in criminology has a long history, this workshop represented the first one in the field of criminology in which it was attempted to get together the main scholars in this field from around the world. The largest group of the workshop represented American scholars (19), a reflection of the fact that longitudi­ nal research in criminology is predominantly conducted in North America. This volume is