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Age and Crime

Age and Crime. Age. Across cultures and history, crime is a youthful behavior All three measures of crime in the U.S. support this Age is inversely related to crime, regardless of social class, marital status, race or gender Young are arrested disproportionately. Age (continued).

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Age and Crime

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  1. Age and Crime

  2. Age • Across cultures and history, crime is a youthful behavior • All three measures of crime in the U.S. support this • Age is inversely related to crime, regardless of social class, marital status, race or gender • Young are arrested disproportionately

  3. Age (continued) • Rate has remained the same for at least 40 years • 15-18 year olds account for 6% of the total population, but account for 25% of index crimes and 15% of all offenses • Crime is most common in the teens and twenties and then declines

  4. Age (continued) • People 45 and older account for 30% of the population, but 6% of index crimes. Over 65 account for 12% of the population but < 1% of index crimes • Subtypes • 1. early onset, career criminals, high rate of offending which persists

  5. Subtypes • 2. High risk, low-profit crimes tend to decline with age • 3. Low risk, high profit crimes do not decline with age, and may increase (embezzlement, fraud, drug dealing) • 4. For most of the population, crime decreases with age: desistance

  6. Explanations • More adventurous • In modern society, more likely to be unemployed, more idle time • Cognitive changes occur in late teens, such as the abiity to develop a long-term view of life, resist need for immediate gratification

  7. Explanations • Function of the natural history of human life cycle, • establishing independence from parents, • bonding with peers. • With age, person has family and work, and becomes part of the adult world, which does not encourage crime

  8. Explanations • Young are less skilled in crime and thus more likely to get caught • Biological: as people age, the lost strength and energy, begin to “low down” and must compete with younger criminals.

  9. Developmental Criminology • History of a criminal career • Study of activation, maintenance, escalation, and desistance of criminal activity • Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck • Wolfgang’s study of 10,000 boys born in Philadelphia in 1945

  10. Wolfgang’s study • By age 18, 1/3 had an arrest • 46% never rearrested • 6% had 4 or more arrests, accounted for 70-80% of all serious crimes committed by the entire group • Cohort then followed to age 30 • Subjects with no juvenile record had an 18% chance of arrest as an adult

  11. Wolfgang (continued) • Persistent (chronic) offenders • 80% chance of becoming an adult offender • 50% chance of being arrested 4 or more times as an adult, accounted for 80% of all serious crimes • Problems in learning and motor skills and family relations early on

  12. Other findings • Youthful offenders 4 times more likely to continue offending as adults • More likely to: • abuse alcohol and drugs, • be economically dependent, • to have weak employment records • marital difficulties

  13. Other findings • Second cohort studies (1958) • Replicated 1st study, overall crime rate was higher • England and Sweden have such studies with similar results • Punishment inversely related to chronic offending: the stricter, themore likely repeated criminal behavior

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