This chapter suggests that delinquency conceals two distinct categories of individuals, each with a unique natural history and etiology: A small group engages in antisocial behavior of one sort or another at every life stage, whereas a larger group is antisocial only during adolescence. According to the theory of life-course-persistent antisocial behavior, children's neuropsychological problems interact cumulatively with their criminogenic environments across development, culminating m a pathological personality. According to the theory of adolescence-limited antisocial behavior, a contemporary maturity gap encourages teens to mimic antisocial behavior in ways that are normative and adjustive. There are marked individual differences in the stability of antisocial behavior. The chapter reviews the mysterious relationship between age and antisocial behavior. Some youths who refrain from antisocial behavior may, for some reason, not sense the maturity gap and therefore lack the hypothesized motivation for experimenting with crime.

/pdf/adolescence-limited-and-life-course-persistent-antisocial-52vil00qlw.pdf

Adolescence-limited and life-course-persistent antisocial behavior: A developmental taxonomy.

Cathie Sudlow and colleagues describe the UK Biobank, a large population-based prospective study, established to allow investigation of the genetic and non-genetic determinants of the diseases of middle and old age.

/pdf/uk-biobank-an-open-access-resource-for-identifying-the-4zrz1witd9.pdf

UK biobank: an open access resource for identifying the causes of a wide range of complex diseases of middle and old age

Despite widespread belief that violence begets violence, methodological problems substantially restrict knowledge of the long-term consequences of childhood victimization. Empirical evidence for this cycle of violence has been examined. Findings from a cohort study show that being abused or neglected as a child increases one's risk for delinquency, adult criminal behavior, and violent criminal behavior. However, the majority of abused and neglected children do not become delinquent, criminal, or violent. Caveats in interpreting these findings and their implications are discussed in this article.

/pdf/the-cycle-of-violence-2a30u0ajca.pdf

The cycle of violence

One of the few facts agreed on in criminology is the age distribution of crime. This fact has been used to criticize social theories of crime causation, to provide the foundation for other theories, to justify recent emphases on career criminals, and to support claims of superiority for longitudinal designs in criminological research. In the present paper, we argue that the age distribution of crime is sufficiently invariant over a broad range of social conditions that these uses of the age distribution are not justified by available evidence.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2779005.pdf

Age and the Explanation of Crime

This article analyzes data derived from the first detailed long‐term follow‐up of a sample of serious adolescent female delinquents and similarly situated males. Neither marital attachment nor job stability, factors frequently associated with male desistance from crime, were strongly related to female or male desistance. A symbolic‐interactionist perspective on desistance is developed as a counterpoint to Sampson and Laub’s theory of informal social control, and life history narratives are used to illustrate the perspective. This cognitive theory is generally compatible with a control approach but (a) adds specificity regarding underlying change mechanisms, (b) explains some negative cases, and (c) fits well with life course challenges facing contemporary serious female (and more provisionally male) offenders.

/pdf/gender-crime-and-desistance-toward-a-theory-of-cognitive-4gncgys1w2.pdf

Gender, Crime, and Desistance: Toward a Theory of Cognitive Transformation

Delinquency in a birth cohort

Criminality in a Birth Cohort: The Followup@@@From Boy to Man, From Delinquency to Crime.

1 Introduction- 2 Cohort Studies in Criminology- The Recognized Need for Cohort Studies- Previous Studies of a Cohort Character- Subsequent Studies of a Cohort Character- Why a New Birth Cohort Study?- 3 Contemporary Issues in Longitudinal Research- Criminal Careers Historically- The Value of Longitudinal Research on Criminal Careers- 4 The 1958 Birth Cohort Study- Objectives- Capturing the Cohort- Collection of Police Data- Measuring Delinquency- Scaling the Gravity of Crime- The Seriousness Scoring System- Measuring Socioeconomic Status- Background Data- 5 The Prevalence of Delinquency- Race and SES- Background Variables- 6 The Incidence of Delinquency- Extent of Delinquency- Severity of Delinquency- 7 The Chronic Juvenile Offender- Chronicity and Frequency of Delinquency- Chronicity and Severity of Delinquency- 8 Delinquent Recidivism: Static Probabilities- The First Offense- Rank Number of Offense- 9 Delinquent Recidivism: Specialization and Escalation- Offense Transition Probabilities: All Offenders- Offense Transition Residuals: All Offenders- Offense Transition Residuals: All Offender Recidivists- Offense Transition Probabilities by Race- Offense Transition Residuals by Race- Offense Escalation: All Offenders- 10 Age-at-Onset and Delinquency- Age-at-Onset Percentages- Age-at-Onset and Mean Number of Offenses- Age-at-Onset and Offense Severity- Age-at-Onset and Offense Types- 11 Delinquency and Age-at-Offense- Distribution of Offenses by Age- Offense Rates by Age- Offense Types by Age- 12 Police and Court Dispositions- Disposition Distributions- Disposition Contingencies- 13 Summary and Implications- Summary of Results- Prevalence- Incidence- Delinquent Subgroups- Recidivism- Age and Delinquency- Disposition- Implications- References

Robert M. Figlio

Papers

Delinquency in a birth cohort

Criminality in a Birth Cohort: The Followup@@@From Boy to Man, From Delinquency to Crime.

Delinquency Careers in Two Birth Cohorts

From Boy to Man, from Delinquency to Crime

Metropolitan Crime Patterns