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Al (A New Yor* Times/CBS poll asked respondents to identify "the single biggest problem facing the nation." The leading issue was violent crime, identified by 19% of the respondents, with an additional 2% citing guns. The next issue of greatest concern was health care-a subject of considerable public discussion at the time-cited as such by 15% of the respondents. Only 3% cited drug abuse.). 8 See U. S. BuREAu or THE CENsus, STAnSTICAL ABSrRACr OF THE U.S. 87, table 115 (1994). 9 SeeAlfred Blumstein &Jacqueline Cohen, Characterizing Criminal Careers, 237 SciENCE 985 (1987); ALmFED BLUMSTEIN Er AL, CRIMINAL CAREERS AD "CAREER CRIMINALS" 1-12 (1986) for consideration of the issues involved and estimates of the duration of criminal careers.

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In a recent paper published in this journal, Gottfredson and Hirschi (1986)' argue that the concepts of criminal careers, career criminals, selective incapacitation, prevalence, and incidence, and longitudinal studies all have little value for criminologv. In our view their paper misrepresents these concepts and our research on these topics. We are pleased to have the opportunity in this paper to develop these concepts more clearly and to show their relevance for criminology.