Citation

Steffensmeier DJ, Allan EA, Harer MD, Streifel C. Am. J. Sociol. 1989; 94(4): 803-831.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1989, University of Chicago Press)

DOI

10.1086/229069

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper examines the age/crime distribution to determine whether there is a single pattern that is constant over time and across crime categories. Using arrest data of the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports for the periods of 1940, 1960, and 1980, the article compares parameters including age of maximum criminality, overall shape of the age-crime curve, and rate of decline from the peak age. Not only is there variation by crime type when the age-crime statistics for 1980 are examined; there is considerable change between 1940 and 1980. The most significant change has been the progressive concentration of offending among the young; this suggests increasing discontinuity in the transition from adolescence to adulthood in modern times. Variations found in the age distribution for different crime types support the traditional sociological view that, although crime rates typically decline throughout life after the initial rise in adolescence, certain crimes peak later, or decline more slowly, or both.