Rethinking one of criminology’s ‘brute facts’: The age–crime curve and the crime drop in Scotland
Abstract
Introduction
Literature review
The ‘great debate’: Is the age–crime curve variant or invariant?
Rediscovering the age–crime curve
The crime drop as cohort or period effects
The age–crime curve and the crime drop
Limitations of recent studies into the age–crime curve and the crime drop
Methods
Data
Data source
Measures
Analytical approach
Visual analysis
Descriptive statistics
Results
Change across age and sex
Age | Sex | Convicted offending rate Year | Relative change (percent) | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1989 | 2011 | |||
17 | Men | 1043 | 385 | −63 |
Women | 116 | 73 | −37 | |
30 | Men | 310 | 374 | 21 |
Women | 51 | 78 | 53 |
Measure | Year | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1989 | 2011 | |||||
Men | Women | Difference | Men | Women | Difference | |
Mean | 26.2 | 28 | –1.8 | 30.8 | 31.3 | –0.50 |
Median | 23 | 25 | –2 | 29 | 30 | –1 |
Mode | 17 | 17 | 0 | 18 | 19 | –1 |
Skew | 1.8 | 1.2 | 0.6 | 0.7 | 0.6 | 0.1 |
Kurtosis | 2.4 | 0.3 | 2.1 | −1.1 | −1.3 | 0.2 |
Convicted offending rate at peak age | 1043.4 | 116.3 | 927.1 | 463.7 | 80.0 | 383.7 |
Trends across time
Trends across crime type
Discussion
The crime drop in Scotland is a youth crime drop
The crime drop is manifest differently in patterns of convicted offending for men and women
The crime drop in Scotland has not been a linear process
Theories of the crime drop must be able to account for these patterns
The age–crime curve in Scotland has shown substantively meaningful change over the crime drop
Limitations
Conclusions
Acknowledgments
Funding
Footnotes
Appendix 1
Study | Case | Time points |
---|---|---|
Blumstein (2006) | USA | 1985, 1993, 2001 |
Farrell et al. (2015) | USA | Initial year of 1980 and final year of 2010. Middle year varied by crime type between 1988 and 1994 |
Farrington (1986) | England and Wales | 1950, 1960, 1970 and 1980, 1938, 1961 and 1983 for men and women separately |
Greenberg (1985) | USA | 1970, 1975, 1980 |
Hirschi and Gottfredson (1983) | England and Wales USA |
1842–1844, 1965 (England and Wales), 1977 (USA) |
Kim et al. (2015) | New York State, USA | 1990–2010 five-year increments |
Steffensmeier et al. (1989) | USA | 1940, 1960 and 1980 |
Ulmer and Steffensmeier (2014) | USA | 1940, 1980 and 2010 |
Appendix 2
Crime type | Offences include |
---|---|
Violent crime | Murder, culpable homicide, attempted murder, serious assault, robbery, common assault, death involving a motor vehicle, other violence |
Dishonesty | Housebreaking, theft by opening lockfast places, theft of motor vehicle, other theft, fraud, other crimes of dishonesty and social security offences |
Other crimes | Fire-raising, vandalism, illegal importation, supply or possession of drugs, other drug offences, breach of the peace, racially aggravated harassment, racially aggravated conduct, threatening or abusive behaviour, offence of stalking, offensive behaviour at football, and threatening communications (under the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communication Scotland Act 2012), crimes against public justice (breach of sexual offender order and breach of sexual harm order are included in crimes against public justice), handling offensive weapons (in possession of an offensive weapon; having in a public place an article with a blade or point, and restriction of weapons), miscellaneous firearm offences, other crimes and offences (not elsewhere specified), sexual crime and prostitution |
Appendix 3
References
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This article was published in European Journal of Criminology.
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