Dixon, A and Farrell, G orcid.org/0000-0002-3987-8457 (2020) Age-period-cohort effects in half a century of motor vehicle theft in the United States. Crime Science, 9. 17. ISSN 2193-7680
Abstract
Adopting and refining O’Brien’s S-constraint approach, we estimate age-period-cohort effects for motor vehicle theft offences in the United States for over half a century from 1960. Taking the well-established late-teen peak offending age as given, we find period effects reducing theft in the 1970 s, and period, but particularly cohort effects, reducing crime from the 1990s onwards. We interpret these effects as consistent with variation in the prevailing level of crime opportunities, particularly the ease with which vehicles could be stolen. We interpret the post-1990s cohort effect as triggered by a period effect that operated differentially by age: improved vehicle security reduced juvenile offending dramatically, to the extent that cohorts experienced reduced offending across the life-course. This suggests the prevailing level of crime opportunities in juvenile years is an important determinant of rates of onset and continuance in offending in birth cohorts. We outline additional implications for research and practice.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2020. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) |
Keywords: | Age-period-cohort models; S-constraint; Vehicle theft; Security hypothesis; Juvenile crime; Developmental criminology; Developmental crime science |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law (Leeds) > School of Law (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) ES/L014971/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 02 Sep 2020 14:40 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 22:24 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer |
Identification Number: | 10.1186/s40163-020-00126-5 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:165012 |