Citation

Wooldredge JD. J. Crim. Justice 1991; 19(6): 515-523.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1991, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/0047-2352(91)90063-2

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

One of the rationales for diverting younger, less serious juvenile offenders from juvenile court is that there may be an inverse relationship between a juvenile offender's age at first formal intervention and his or her probability of recidivating. Yet, a truly reliable empirical test of this relationship has never been presented in the literature. Overcoming the barriers to such a test, this study examined the recidivism rates of six age-group cohorts of male delinquents in Illinois in order to test whether differences in juvenile's ages at first formal intervention (in cases in which first arrests involved class 3 or class 4 felonies) correspond with significant differences in recidivism probabilities. Results support the idea that differences in age at first formal intervention do not correspond with significant differences in recidivism probabilities. These findings would not have resulted without the use of varied follow-up periods for the different cohorts (to control for the influence of age during the follow-up period on the probability of criminal behavior).