Has Postponed Entry into Adult Roles Modified U.S. Age-Crime Curves? Age-Arrest Patterns of Teens, Emerging Adults and Adult Age Groups, 1980–2019

Abstract

Social changes in industrialized societies have prolonged adolescence, postponing entry into adult roles. We use U.S. age-arrest data to investigate whether this delay has contributed to higher crime rates among emerging adults, altering population age-arrest curves. We compare parameters for multiple offenses from 1980 to 2019 to answer: (1) Have there been recent shifts toward older, less adolescent-spiked curves; (2) If so, do emerging adults today exhibit higher offending levels than historical counterparts; or (3) Do proximate age-groups drive these distributional alterations? We find peak age remains in the late teens, but today’s age-curves for minor offenses are more symmetrical compared to preceding adolescent-spiked iterations. Given contemporary emerging adults’ relatively low offending levels, more symmetrical age curves are the product of precipitous declines in teen arrest rates coupled with higher mid-life adult rates. Tracking future age-arrest trends is important, but data collection challenges related to the UCR-NIBRS transition may hinder those efforts.