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This article examines age homophily among co-offenders, using data on approximately 440,000 co-offenses recorded by police in Canada during 2006 to 2009. Log-linear models for social mobility tables are applied to an 86-by-86 table of frequencies of co-offending among year-of-age groups for individuals from 3 to 88 years old. The results indicate strong age homophily for co-offenders of all ages, but decreasing with age. There is further structuration into four age groups: children (3-11 years), youth (12-17 years), young adults (18-45 years), and older adults (46-88 years). The “Fagin” hypothesis that offenders below the age of criminal responsibility are particularly attractive as co-offenders for older offenders is disconfirmed.

This article examines the impact of the Youth Criminal Justice Act of 2002 on police discretion with apprehended young offenders in Canada. Data for 1986 to 2005 from the Canadian Uniform Crime Reporting Survey are analyzed using an interrupted time series design. The Youth Criminal Justice Act was successful in achieving its objective of reducing youth court referrals by structuring police discretion. It caused a substantial change in the exercise of police discretion with apprehended youth: a substantial decrease in the use of charges and a corresponding increase in the use of alternatives to charging. The substitution of extrajudicial measures for charges occurred in all four regions of Canada and was much greater with minor offenses than with serious youth crime. Possible reasons for the success of the Youth Criminal Justice Act are discussed.

This article demonstrates the innovative use of the log-linear distance model in the assessment of homophily in a set of small groups, such as the co-participants in a set of events. It traces the development of the application of the log-linear distance model to the study of homophily and reviews its recent use to assess the extent and structure of gender and age homophily in groups of criminal accomplices (‘co-offenders’). The transformations of the group membership data that are a prerequisite of the log-linear analysis, and the interpretation of the log-linear parameters, are explained in detail in order to make the approach accessible to potential users. Although the described applications are to gender and age homophily in groups of criminal accomplices, the method can be used to assess homophily on one or more variables in any small groups.