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RATE OF OFFENDING IN JUVENILE CAREERS: FINDINGS OF CONSTANCY AND CHANGE IN LAMBDA *
Author(s) -
LOEBER ROLF,
SNYDER HOWARD N.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
criminology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.467
H-Index - 139
eISSN - 1745-9125
pISSN - 0011-1384
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-9125.1990.tb01319.x
Subject(s) - lambda , juvenile , psychology , perspective (graphical) , juvenile delinquency , demography , age groups , developmental psychology , sociology , biology , mathematics , physics , ecology , geometry , optics
This study examines changes in the rate of offending in a sample of 8,834 males whose official juvenile law‐violating careers included 26,650 offense episodes between ages 8 and 17 The rate of offending of active offenders (i.e., lambda) varied substantially as a function of age, increasing monotonically with age. Lambda, however, was not related to the age at first offense. In fact, the average lambda was amazingly constant at each individual age level regardless of the age at which offending began or desisted. Results are discussed in the light of age‐crime curves known from other data sets and from the perspective of developmental changes in the rate of offending as youths grow older.