Age Crime Curve

Mid-term

The age crime curve attempts to explain that the age in which crimes are most prevalent. According to the curve the incidence of crime increases with age until individuals reach about 16 to 20 years old. Understanding the age crime curve is important because it contributes to understand or at least analyze if the relationship between age and crime is due to prevalence. In other words, if the general shape of the curve according to age appears because of involvement in offending varies by age group. Is there a larger proportion of the adolescent population responsible for offending more, while the population older age groups offending less.

In the Wolfgang et al Philadelphia Birth Cohort study, Marvin Wolfgang and his colleagues completed

Prevalence is the difference between participation of crime between those who do not commit a crime. Frequency refers to the rate which a crime is committed, and its implications related to crime policy. Onset refers to the beginning of a criminal career. Persistence refers to a continuing criminal activity and desistance refers to stopping a criminal activity. Finally, a career length refers to the amount of time between onset and desistance. Understanding which offenders are more likely to have a longer criminal career can help the system but the problem comes when all these components are mixed together. This point brings me to my final point for this paper: how does all this relate or contribute to the prediction problem. Well first point I want to emphasize is the fact that when one looks at the relationship between age and crime at the individual level one can see a great deal of variation. When it comes to analyzing the age-crime curve there is this lack of comprehension about the covariance across time, place, individual characteristics, and offense type. By looking at the curve one sees the numbers a whole rather than at the individual level. When one looks at the relationship between age and crime at the individual level, however, one can see a great deal of variation. Therefore, the prediction of crime is not realistic. What seems like an easy question has no one simple answer at all. A lot of research has been done with regards to crime rates, but this indeed is a complex