Overview
One of the most consistent findings across studies on offending in different countries is the age-crime curve (Farrington 1986; Tremblay and Nagin 2005). The relationship between age and crime is of an asymmetrical bell shape, showing that the prevalence of offending (the percentage of offenders in a population) tends to increase from late childhood, peaks in the teenage years (around ages 15–19), and then declines from the early 20s, often with a long tail (Fig. 1). The sharp increase during adolescence in the curve reflects an increase in new delinquency recruits during that period, and the rate of recruitment tends to slow down subsequently (Smith et al. 2002). The age-crime differs from developmental trajectories (qv) of offending in that the age-crime curve indicates the prevalence of offending by age of populations of individuals, whereas developmental trajectories make distinctions between subgroups of offenders, such as life-course persistent offenders and...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Recommended Reading and References
Barnett A, Blumstein A, Farrington DP (1987) Probabilistic models of youthful criminal careers. Criminology 25:83–108
Blumstein A, Cohen J, Roth JA, Visher CA (1986) Criminal careers and “career criminals.”. National Academy Press, Washington, DC
Cook PJ, Laub JH (2002) After the epidemic: recent trends in youth violence in the United States. In: Tonry M (ed) Crime and justice: a review of research. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp 117–153
De Brito SA, Mechelli A, Wilke M, Laurens KR, Jones AP, Barker GJ, Hodgins S, Viding E (2009) Size matters: increased grey matter in boys with conduct problems and callous-unemotional traits. Brain: J Neurol 132:843–852
Fabio A, Cohen J, Loeber R (in press) Neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage and the shape of the age-crime curve. American Journal of Public Health
Farrington DP (1986) Age and crime. In: Tonry M, Morris N (eds) Crime and justice: an annual review of research, vol 7. Chicago University Press, Chicago, pp 189–250
Foss R (2001) Licensing. Translating injury prevention research into action: A strategic workshop, Dallas, TX (February 1)
Giedd JN (2004) Structural magnetic resonance imaging of the adolescent brain. Ann N Y Acad Sci 1021:77–85
Giedd JN, Rumsey JM, Castellanos FX, Rajapakse JC, Kaysen D, Vaituzis AC, Vauss YC, Hamburger SD, Rapoport JL (1996) A quantitative MRI study of the corpus callosum in children and adolescents. Dev Brain Res 91:274–280
Gottfredson MR, Hirschi T (1990) A general theory of crime. Stanford University Press, Stanford
Jolliffe D, Farrington DP (2009) A systematic review of the relationship between childhood impulsiveness and later violence. In: McMurran M, Howard R (eds) Personality, personality disorder, and violence. Wiley, New York, pp 41–62
Kershaw C, Nicholas S, Walker A (2008) Crime in England and Wales 2007/08. London: Home Office. www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs08/hosb0708.pdf
Lipsey MW, Wilson DB (1998) Effective intervention for serious juvenile offenders: a synthesis of research. In: Loeber R, Farrington DP (eds) Serious and violent juvenile offenders: risk factors and successful interventions. Sage, Thousand Oaks, pp 313–345
Loeber R, Farrington DP (2012) From juvenile delinquency to adult crime: criminal careers, justice policy and prevention. Oxford University Press, New York
Loeber R, Snyder HN (1990) Rate of offending in juvenile careers: findings of constancy and change in lambda. Criminology 28:97–109
Loeber R, Stallings R (2011) Modeling the impact of interventions on local indicators of offending, victimization, and incarceration. In: Loeber R, Farrington DP (eds) Young homicide offenders and victims: risk factors, prediction, and prevention from childhood. Springer, New York, pp 137–152
Loeber R, Farrington DP, Stouthamer-Loeber M, Van Kammen WB (1998) Antisocial behavior and mental health problems: explanatory factors in childhood and adolescence. Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah
Loeber R, Farrington DP, Stouthamer-Loeber M, White HR (2008) Violence and serious theft: development and prediction from childhood to adulthood. Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah
Loeber R, Farrington DP, Stallings R (2011) The Pittsburgh youth study. In: Loeber R, Farrington DP (eds) Young homicide offenders and victims: risk factors, prediction, and prevention from childhood. Springer, New York, pp 19–36
Loeber R, Hoeve M, Slot NW, van der Laan P (in press) Persisters and desisters in crime from adolescence into adulthood: explanation, prevention, and punishment. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate
Moffitt TE (1993) Adolescence-limited and life-course-persistent antisocial behavior: a developmental taxonomy. Psychol Rev 100:674–701
Piquero AR, Jennings WG, Farrington DP (2009) Effectiveness of programmes designed to improve self-control. Stockholm: National Council for Crime Prevention. Available from www.bra.se (choose English language pages)
Piquero AR, Hawkins JD, Kazemian L (in press) Criminal career patterns. In: Loeber R, Farrington DP (eds) From juvenile delinquency to adult crime: criminal careers, justice policy and prevention. New York, NY: Oxford University Press
Smith P, Goggin C, Gendreau P (2002) The effects of prison sentences and intermediate sanctions on recidivism: general effects and individual differences. Solicitor General of Canada, Ottawa
Sowell ER, Thompson PM, Tessner KD, Toga AW (2001) Mapping continued brain growth and gray matter density reduction in dorsal frontal cortex: inverse relationships during postadolescent brain maturation. J Neurosci 21:8819–8829
Steinberg L, Cauffman E, Woolard J, Graham S, Banich M (2009) Are adolescents less mature than adults? Minors’ access to abortion, the juvenile death penalty, and the alleged APA “flip-flop”. Am Psychol 64:583–594
Stolzenberg L, D’Alessio SJ (2008) Co-offending and the age-crime curve. J Res Crime Delinq 45:65–86
Stouthamer-Loeber M, Loeber R, Stallings R, Lacourse E (2008) Desistance from and persistence in offending. In: Loeber R, Farrington DP, Stouthamer-Loeber M, White HR (eds) Violence and serious theft: risk and promotive factors from childhood to early adulthood. Erlbaum, Mahwah, pp 269–308
Theobald D, Farrington DP (2009) Effects of getting married on offending: results from a prospective longitudinal survey of males. Eur J Criminol 6:496–516
Tremblay RE, Nagin DS (2005) The developmental origins of physical aggression in humans. In: Tremblay RE, Hartup WH, Archer J (eds) Developmental origins of aggression. Guilford Press, New York, pp 83–106
Zimmer-Gembeck MJ, Skinner EA (2011) Review: the development of coping across childhood and adolescence: an integrative review and critique of research. Int J Behav Dev 35:1–17
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this entry
Cite this entry
Loeber, R., Farrington, D.P. (2014). Age-Crime Curve. In: Bruinsma, G., Weisburd, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5690-2_474
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5690-2_474
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-5689-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-5690-2
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences