Adult-onset Offenders Research Articles

Age, Gender, and Crime in a Stockholm Birth Cohort to Age 64

We study the criminal histories of 14,608 males and females in a full Stockholm birth cohort born in 1953 to age 64. Using an update of The Stockholm Birth Cohort Study data, we explore the amount of crimes recorded in the cohort before and after the advent of adulthood. We break down the age/crime curve into separate parameters, including onset, duration, and termination. Throughout, we utilize the large number of females (49%; n = 7 161) in the cohort, and compare long-term patterns of male and female criminal careers. Next, we focus on adulthood, and explore the existence and parameters of the adult-onset offender and its contribution to the overall volume of crime in the cohort. While crime peaks in adolescence, the main bulk of crimes in the cohort occurred after the dawning of adulthood. Nearly half of all male, and more than two-thirds of all female, crimes in the cohort occurred after age 25. In the case of violence, the majority of offences — around two-thirds for both genders — took place in adulthood. Around 23% of all males and 38% of all females with a criminal record in the cohort were first recorded for a criminal offence in adulthood. While a majority were convicted only once, a proportion of adult-onset offenders had a considerable risk of recidivism and repeated recidivism. These results suggest that quite a substantial proportion of the population initiate crime in adulthood, and that these offenders account for a nonnegligible proportion of adult crime.

Persistent offenders and adolescence-limited offenders: Differences in life-courses.

As our previous study indicated, almost half of juvenile delinquents continued offending in adulthood, while the rest ceased to do so. We compared these groups with each other and with non-offenders in the life-course use of alcohol, identity development and life situation. Based on the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development, four groups were formed at age 42 for men and women: persistent, adolescence-limited and adult-onset offenders and non-offenders. Longitudinal data (N = 369; 53% males) have been collected at ages 8, 14, 20, 27, 36, 42 and 50. Persistent offending, but not adolescence-limited offending, was associated with the accumulation of problems in adulthood and an elevated risk of death before age 54. For males, persistent offending was associated with heavy drinking from adolescence to middle age, diffuse identity, high divorce rates and poverty. For females, persistent offending was associated with heavy drinking in adulthood and a higher rate of being outside the workforce in middle age. In males, adolescence-limited offending was associated with more controlled drinking in adulthood, and in females, with early divorce from the partner and advanced identity. Detecting the risks of the accumulation of problems and potential for positive transitions of juvenile delinquents until middle age will be important for prevention and treatment.

Sociodemographic Characteristics, Adverse Childhood Experiences, and Substance Use and Psychiatric Disorders Among Adolescent-Limited, Adult-Onset, Life-Course-Persistent Offenders and Nonoffenders in a General Population Survey

This study compared sociodemographic characteristics, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and substance use and psychiatric disorders between adolescent-limited (AL), adult-onset (AO), life-course-persistent (LP) and nonoffender (NO) groups using a large U.S. general population survey. The odds of experiencing several ACEs were greater among each offender group relative to NOs. LP offenders experience more ACEs than AL and AO offenders. Each offender group generally experienced greater substance use and psychopathology than NOs, whereas LP offenders experienced more substance use and psychopathology than AO and AL offenders. The results of this study identified several sociodemographic factors, ACEs, and types of psychopathology that differentiate AL, AO, LP, and NO offenders that can help inform prevention and intervention strategies designed to prevent offending and shorten criminal careers.

Officially Registered Criminal Careers of Members of Dutch Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs and Their Support Clubs

ABSTRACT Decisive action against criminal outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMCGs) ranks high on the criminal justice agenda. Nevertheless, in many Western European countries the number of OMCG chapters has increased rapidly. Official OMCG support clubs also have mushroomed. The present study extends prior research from the Netherlands and elsewhere by employing a gang database of 1,617 OMCG members and 473 support club members maintained by the Dutch police and examining members’ juvenile and adult criminal careers based on judicial data. While committing an offense was no prerequisite of being included in the database, criminal career data show that the majority of OMCG and support club members is convicted at least once. In addition, we find there is ample variation in both the level and shape of these individual’s criminal trajectories. In line with prior research, the majority of OMCG and support club members are found to be adult onset offenders. A considerable share of both samples however, follows criminal trajectories characterized by early onset, frequent and persistent criminal behavior. Building on prior theoretical accounts of OMCG evolution, these findings are interpreted against the background of recent changes in the Dutch outlaw biker landscape. Implications for the Dutch whole-of-government approach are discussed.

Social Bonds and White-Collar Crime: A Two-Study Assessment of Informal Social Controls in White-Collar Offenders

ABSTRACTIn two studies, this paper examines age-graded informal social controls (bonds) in white-collar offenders. Using register data, Study 1 compares bonds in a sample of white-collar offenders to a matched control sample, while Study 2 uses probation data to examine bonds within a subsample of white-collar offenders of Study 1. The results show that white-collar offenders, including those who occupy executive positions and those with an adult-crime onset, were characterized by weakened bonds and that early-onset offenders had weaker bonds than adult-onset offenders. Along with the implications of these findings for theory, limitations and directions for future research are presented.

Adulthood-limited offending: How much is there to explain?

PurposeThe current study explores male and female adult-onset offending careers in a Swedish population-based longitudinal dataset comprising five successive birth cohorts which are followed prospectively on the basis of detailed conviction data to age 50. MethodsAdult-onset offenders are compared to juvenile-onset offenders on a number of criminal career measures. Growth curve analysis is employed to visualize average trajectories for convictions during adulthood. ResultsThe study found that 22% of convicted males and 38% of convicted females were convicted for the first time for offenses committed between ages 25 and 50. The adult-onset males contributed 19% of all male adulthood convictions and 16% of male violent convictions in adulthood. The adult-onset females contributed 47% of all female adulthood convictions and 48% of female violent convictions in adulthood. While the adolescent-onset trajectories displayed generally decreasing trends for offending in adulthood, adult-onset females displayed increasing trends in relation to trajectories of violence and drug/alcohol-related offending as they approached middle adulthood. ConclusionsThere is a need for developmental and life-course theories of crime to be explicit in explaining adult-onset offending, particularly in relation to gender disparities.

Criminal Career Dimensions of Juvenile- and Adult-Onset Offenders

PurposeEarlier studies tried to predict and explain adult-onset offending, most often by comparing risk factors for juvenile and adult onset of criminal behavior. Little is known, however, about how criminal careers of adult-onset offenders develop. The aim of this study is to describe and compare juvenile- and adult-onset criminal careers of both men and women in terms of frequency, intensity, duration, recidivism, crime mix, seriousness, and specialization.MethodsUsing a sample of 43,338 offenders who all had a criminal record in 2013, criminal careers are reconstructed retrospectively up to age 12 and prospectively up to the 1st of July, 2014. Male and female juvenile- and adult-onset offenders are identified and compared on the abovementioned parameters of their criminal careers.ResultsCompared to all other groups, female adult-onset offenders commit fewer crimes, offend at a lower rate, desist from crime earlier, have lower recidivism risks at least up to the tenth crime, commit different types of offenses, commit more minor and less serious crimes, and are more specialized in the types of crime they commit. Male juvenile-onset offenders have the most serious career in terms of these career dimensions.ConclusionsCriminal careers of adult-onset offenders, both men and women, develop differently on all dimensions. Implications for life-course criminological theories and prevention strategies are discussed.

De Novo Advanced Adult-Onset Offending: New Evidence from a Population of Federal Correctional Clients.

Adult antisocial behavior is almost always predated by delinquency during childhood or adolescence; however, there is also evidence of adult-onset criminal offending. This study examined this controversial subgroup of offenders using self-reported and official data from a total population of federal correctional clients selected from the Midwestern United States. Difference of means t-tests, chi-square tests, and logistic regression models found that 11.7% of clients had an adult onset of offending and 2.7% of clients (n = 23) had an onset occurring at age 60 years or older. This group-introduced as de novo advanced adult-onset offenders-had high socioeconomic status, mixed evidence of adverse childhood experiences, and virtually no usage of drugs with the exception of alcohol. These offenders were primarily convicted of social security and white-collar crimes and evinced remarkably low psychopathology and criminal risk. More research is needed to replicate the phenomenon of de novo advanced adult-onset offending.

Adult-onset offenders: Is a tailored theory warranted?

PurposeTo describe official adult-onset offenders, investigate their antisocial histories and test hypotheses about their origins. MethodsWe defined adult-onset offenders among 931 Dunedin Study members followed to age 38, using criminal-court conviction records. ResultsOfficial adult-onset offenders were 14% of men, and 32% of convicted men, but accounted for only 15% of convictions. As anticipated by developmental theories emphasizing early-life influences on crime, adult-onset offenders' histories of antisocial behavior spanned back to childhood. Relative to juvenile-offenders, during adolescence they had fewer delinquent peers and were more socially inhibited, which may have protected them from conviction. As anticipated by theories emphasizing the importance of situational influences on offending, adult-onset offenders, relative to non-offenders, during adulthood more often had schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and alcohol-dependence, had weaker social bonds, anticipated fewer informal sanctions, and self-reported more offenses. Contrary to some expectations, adult-onset offenders did not have high IQ or high socioeconomic-status families protecting them from juvenile conviction. ConclusionsA tailored theory for adult-onset offenders is unwarranted because few people begin crime de novo as adults. Official adult-onset offenders fall on a continuum of crime and its correlates, between official non-offenders and official juvenile-onset offenders. Existing theories can accommodate adult-onset offenders.

Adult-Onset Offending: A Neglected Reality? Findings From a Contemporary British General Population Cohort.

There is disagreement in the literature as to whether there are any true adult-onset offenders. The aim of this study is to investigate the prevalence and correlates of adult-onset offenders in a contemporary British general population cohort consisting of 739 individuals aged between 18 and 25 years. Sixteen percent of participants reported offending for the first time after the age of 18. It is concluded that adult-onset exists and deserves to be studied further. Adult-onset offenders were more likely to report using drugs, associating with deviant peers, and having mental health problems in adulthood than non-offenders. Compared with early-onset offenders, the adult-onset offenders were people with a stronger attachment to school, which may have protected them from the risk of offending in adolescence. It is possible that when that protection was removed in adulthood and they were exposed to negative life events, such as drug use and mental illness, they became involved in crime for the first time.

Administrative data linkage as a tool for developmental and life-course criminology: The Queensland Linkage Project

A fundamental challenge to developmental and life-course (DLC) criminology research is access to appropriate longitudinal data to examine hypotheses concerning causal risk factors for offending and within-individual change over time, and to empirically test DLC theories. In this paper we present a powerful method for collecting appropriate data – linked administrative data. The Queensland Linkage Project includes three population-based longitudinal linked administrative databases – the Queensland Longitudinal Data (QLD) – QLD 83, QLD 84 and QLD 90. We describe the methodology of linking administrative data, the establishment of the QLD datasets and a selection of the work facilitated by these data. This work addresses issues raised by the editors including the effects of life events and the timing of risk factors (child maltreatment) on further offending, the monetary costs of offending across the life-course and the development of adult-onset offending. We finish by describing current work on the Queensland Linkage Project where mental health system data are being integrated with justice system data.

White-collar crime and first-time adult-onset offending: Explorations in the concept of negative life events as turning points

The article explores first-time adult-onset offending in cases of white-collar crime where the crime occurs as a consequence of a breakdown, brought by negative life events, in the circumstances that previously kept one from engaging in criminal activity. Criminal cases involving a bank manager and a male options broker working in the Swedish banking and finance sector are analyzed. Negative life events are proposed to offer a useful explanation for first-time adult-onset offending if conceptualized as turning points caused by a chain of life events entailing enmeshment in problems of a scope and kind one has never been forced to deal with in the past, threatening essential aspects of one's identity and life project, and accompanied by perceived loss of previously available social support for one's prioritizings, at the same time as one remains in possession of resources making criminal solutions seem comparatively expedient. Directions for future research are suggested.

‘Hen's teeth and horse's toes’: the adult onset offender in criminology

Several scholars have argued that the prevalence of an adult onset of offending necessitates research and theoretical explanation, whereas other scholars remain skeptical about the existence of offenders who onset in adulthood. The reconciliation of this debate holds significant implications for the sort of criminological theory the field should value and pursue. For instance, persuasive empirical evidence of adult onset offenders supports symmetrical theories of crime, such as Sampson and Laub's age-graded theory, which allow for both positive and negative behavioral change in adulthood. In contrast, the lack of such evidence supports asymmetrical theories of crime, such as Gottfredson and Hirschi's general theory of crime, which argue that change is one way, as crime uniformly declines after an initial peak in adolescence. Using the Cambridge Study in Delinquency Development and the Rochester Youth Development Study, as well as between and within-subjects analysis, we find no evidence of true adult onset offenders, thus supporting asymmetrical theories of crime and questioning the utility of continued research and discussion on this supposed ‘type’ of offender

Female offenders’ pathways to prison in Belgium

This paper examines some results of a research on female offenders? life histories and pathways to prison in Belgium. Women?s pathways into crime will be presented and the connection of these pathways to their life histories will be explored. The study reveals that the greater part of the research population are adult-onset offenders. The authors argue that the importance of adult-onset pathways for female offenders might be explained by the emergence of (gendered) vulnerabilities within the women?s lives, often accumulated not before adulthood.

The First-Time Adult-Onset Offender

Preoccupation of criminologists with juvenile-onset criminal careers overshadows the fact that offenders who begin their criminal careers in adulthood comprise a substantial portion of adult offender populations. Little is known about adult-onset offenders, generally, and even less about first-time adult-onset offenders. Using a large sample of adult felons on probation supervision, this study explores differences between first and repeat offenders. With respect to risk factors at intake, timing of rearrest, and frequency and nature of supervision failures over 3 years, first-time adult-onset participants exhibited statistically significant differences in relation to both repeat adult-onset and juvenile persistent offenders, with largest differences occurring in analyses involving the latter. With respect to risk factors at intake and rearrest, events in adulthood played a more dominant role among first-time adult-onset offenders compared with other groups, where criminal lifestyle factors were in greater evidence. The article concludes with a discussion of community supervision practices to prevent the progression of the first-time adult-onset offender's criminal career, social reforms to assist this group, and avenues for relevant future research.

Are There Any True Adult-Onset Offenders?

In the extant literature, adult-onset offending has usually been identified using official sources. It is possible, however, that many of the individuals identified would have had unofficial histories of prior offending. To investigate this issue, the men from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD) were examined. The CSDD is a prospective longitudinal study of men from inner-city London, followed from age 8 to age 48. Onset of offending was identified using official records and then the self-reported offending of the adult-onset offender group (with a first conviction at age 21 or later) was compared to others. All the adult-onset offenders self-reported some previous offending in childhood and adolescence but most of this offending was not sufficiently frequent or serious to lead to a conviction in practice. About one-third of adult-onset offenders were considered to be self-reported delinquents who were realistically in danger of being convicted because of the frequency of their offending. For some, the adjudication by the criminal justice system was simply the first time that their ongoing pattern of offending had been detected. Their lack of detection was because the types of offences they were committing had lower detection rates.

Criminal Trajectories in Organized Crime

This paper investigates criminal trajectories of individuals who are involved in organized crime. A semiparametric group-model is used to cluster 854 individuals into groups with similar developmental trajectories. The most important fi ndings of the study relate to the substantial group of adult-onset offenders (40 per cent) and a group without any previous criminal records (19 per cent), next to a group of early starters (11 per cent) and a group of persisters (30 per cent). Up to date, no trajectory study has discovered such a vast share of adult-onset offenders. Furthermore, the fi ndings turn out to be quite robust, if trajectory analyses are applied to different kinds of criminal activities and to different roles in criminal groups.

Life success of males on nonoffender, adolescence‐limited, persistent, and adult‐onset antisocial pathways: follow‐up from age 8 to 42

A random sample of 196 males, drawn from the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development, was divided into four groups of offenders using information from government registers of convictions between ages 21 and 47, from local police registers searched at age 21, from a Self-Report Delinquency Scale administered at age 36, from a Life History Calendar for ages 15-42, and from personal interviews at ages 27, 36, and 42. The groups were: persistent offenders (offences before and after age 21; 29% of the men); adolescence-limited offenders (offences before age 21; 27%); adult-onset offenders (offences after age 21; 16%); and nonoffenders (28%). The profile of the persistent offenders included many characteristics of antisocial personality and problems of social and psychological functioning at all ages. In childhood and adolescence, the adolescence-limited offenders tended to display higher self-control than the other offenders indicated by less negative emotionality and higher constraint. In early middle age, they were well established in terms of work and marriage, but they differed from the nonoffenders in higher neuroticism, aggressiveness, and psychosomatic symptoms as did the other offender groups. The adult-onset offenders displayed an emotionally unstable personality, and in adulthood, they tended to be heavy users of alcohol. Parental SES did not differentiate the groups, but the parents of the persistent offenders tended to use alcohol heavily, and the social capital of the family tended to be low compared with the other groups.

Understanding Women's Pathways to Jail: Analysing the Lives of Incarcerated Women

Some researchers suggest that crime pathways are gendered and that different paths may be revealed depending on the point of contact with the criminal justice system. Drawing from the feminist and age-of-onset literatures, we examine the life experiences of a sample of ‘high-risk’ women to assess whether their offending pathways into jail are consistent with those predicted by earlier research.We find substantial overlaps with feminist pathways, but notable differences as well — differences that may lie with which populations are under study (jailed and awaiting trial/disposition versus convicted felons; by racial composition). Sorting the women by onset age (early, adolescent, and adult), we discover a sizeable group of adult onset offenders (54%). Compared with those who begin offending earlier, these late onset women appear to have distinct risk factors.

An examination of adult onset offending

The onset of offending received much research attention in criminology; however, the majority of research focused on juvenile offenders. As a consequence, little was known about the prevalence of and causes associated with adult onset. Using data from the Philadelphia portion of the National Collaborative Perinatal Project followed through the mid- to late thirties, this study focused on the prevalence of adult onset and the factors related to adult onset. Three key findings emerged from this study. First, females were less likely than males to be adult onset offenders. Second, participants who had mothers that smoked cigarettes during pregnancy were more likely to be adult onset offenders. Third, participants who had higher scores on the total battery score of the California Achievement Test (CAT) were less likely to be adult onset offenders. Limitations and future research directions are outlined.