Exploring the individual-level effects of New Labour’s social policy agenda on crime over the life-course: outlining a strategically-paired cohort study

As part of the Institute of Criminology's Lent term public seminar series, Professor Stephen Farrall spoke on 12th February 2026 on 'Exploring the individual-level effects of New Labour’s social policy agenda on crime over the life-course: outlining a strategically-paired cohort study'.

Few social scientists have explored the ways in which a country’s trajectory of development and change has affected the lives and life-courses of the citizens living in that country. Using data from Britain and employing concepts from life-course studies and historical institutionalism, this paper explores the extent to which individual life-courses are shaped and altered by government social and economic policies. In short, the project asks the questions: Do individual life-courses mirror those of the countries they live in? Is path dependency felt not just at an institutional level but at an individual level too?

Stephen draws on his past work on the impact of Thatcherite social and economic policies on offending and criminal careers at the individual level in order to outline future work on similar processes during the New Labour era (1997-2010). The data comes from UCL’s Centre for Longitudinal Studies’ repeated prospective cohorts (namely, the National Child Development Study, the 1970 British Cohort Study, Next Steps and the Millennium Cohort Study). In the talk, Steve presents the research design for a two-year project funded by the Leverhulme Trust which will start in March 2026.

Stephen’s recent work has focused on the impacts of macro-level social and economic policies on the lives and life-courses of individuals living in Britain. This has involved the analysis of repeated longitudinal cohort studies (born in 1958 and 1970). He talks about some of the things which emerged from his earlier work on Thatcherism and outlines a new project which will explore the impact of New Labour’s social policies on the offending careers of those born in 1989-90 and 2000-2001. His work will be of interest to sociologist and political scientists as well as criminologists and lawyers. 

Catch up with the recording of the lecture here.