Back to Search
Start Over
AGE AND ITS RELATION TO CRIME IN TAIWAN AND THE UNITED STATES: INVARIANT, OR DOES CULTURAL CONTEXT MATTER?
- Source :
-
Criminology . May2017, Vol. 55 Issue 2, p377-404. 28p. - Publication Year :
- 2017
-
Abstract
- Current empirical and theoretical understanding of the relation between age and crime is based almost entirely on data from the United States and a few prototypical Western societies for which age-specific crime information across offense types is available. By using Western databases, Hirschi and Gottfredson (1983) projected that the age distribution of crime is always and everywhere robustly right-skewed (i.e., sharp adolescent peak)-a thesis that is both contested and widely accepted in criminology and social science writings. In the study described here, we tested this age-crime invariance thesis by comparing age-crime patterns in Taiwan (a non-Western Chinese society) with those in the United States. In light of Taiwan's collectivist culture versus the U.S. individualist gestalt, we anticipated more divergence than homogeneity in their age-crime schedules. Our findings show robust divergence in Taiwan's age-crime patterns compared with U.S. patterns and the reverted J-shaped norm projected by Hirschi and Gottfredson. Implications for research and theory on the age-crime relation and for studying human development or life-course topics more broadly are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- *CRIME & age
*RISK-taking behavior
*ADOLESCENT psychology
*DATABASES
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00111384
- Volume :
- 55
- Issue :
- 2
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Criminology
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 123283284
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12139