Abstract
Traditional theories of “adolescent risk taking” have not been validated against recent research indicating that youthful traffic crash, violent crime, felony crime, and firearms mortality rates reflect young people’s low-socio-economic status (SES) compared with older adults’, not young age. Aside from a small number of recent, conflicting studies, the literature gap on this key issue remains. The present study examines the 54,094 homicide deaths, including 41,123 gun homicides, victimizing California residents ages 15 to 69 during 1991 to 2012 by poverty status. Without controlling for poverty, homicide rates display the traditional age-curve peaking at 19, then declining. When poverty is controlled, the traditional age-curve persists only for high-poverty populations, in which young people are vastly over-represented, and homicide rates are elevated for all ages. This finding reiterates that “adolescent risk taking” may be an artifact of failing to control for age-divergent SES.
Highlights
Four previous articles have challenged traditional concepts of “adolescent risk taking,” including the “age–crime curve,” for mis-attributing behaviors associated with the high rates of poverty and disadvantage suffered by young people to age-based biological and developmental traits (Brown & Males, 2011; Males, 2009a, 2009b; Males & Brown, 2013b)
They argued that traditional theories of natural teenage criminality, violence, recklessness, peer orientation, and risk taking incorporate a traditional error: the failure to control for external disparities in socio-economic status (SES), including conditions of poverty, before imposing concepts of internal bio-developmental limits
The first well accepted among modern researchers and the second well documented by standard social indexes, are evident: (a) poverty and social disadvantage are crucial variables in assessing comparative levels of criminal offending and other risks among varied populations, and (b) adolescents, young adults, and older adult populations differ in significant ways other than just age, including poverty level and other measures of disadvantage
Summary
Four previous articles have challenged traditional concepts of “adolescent risk taking,” including the “age–crime curve,” for mis-attributing behaviors associated with the high rates of poverty and disadvantage suffered by young people to age-based biological and developmental traits (Brown & Males, 2011; Males, 2009a, 2009b; Males & Brown, 2013b). Where teenagers enjoy the same advantaged economic conditions as the average middle-aged adults, teenagers display “middle-aged” outcomes (Brown & Males, 2011; Males & Brown, 2013a, 2013b) These studies do not make any inferences about individual risk taking; their focus is on populations. Exhaustive literature searches by the authors and by other researchers have revealed only one other study of the interaction of age and economic disadvantage in predicting risk taking: Shulman et al (2013a), Steinberg, and Piquero’s (2013) analysis of National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) data that finds no age–poverty interaction for ages 12 to 23 in self-reported offending This cohort study is limited in age range and fails to control for major confounds such as period effects, as will be discussed. It is difficult to apply cohort and population studies to test or refute each other because they use very different assumptions and methods, synthesizing their findings may prove useful
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