Age and Its Relation to Crime in Taiwan and the United States: Invariant, or Does Cultural Context Matter?*

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.

The contribution of age structure to the international homicide decline

“…Similarly, in the United States youth between 15 and 29 years correspond to 20.9% of the total population, but are responsible for 49.8% of all arrests for violent crimes (S1 Fig). While there is growing evidence for differences in the specific age distribution of crime across countries [12,13], the overall shape of this distribution is consistent and studies regularly find that violent behavior declines as individuals age into later adulthood. Since violent crime tends to be most common amongst youth, countries with younger populations–all else equal–should have higher homicide rates [14].…”

Towards Culture-Inclusive Criminology in Asia

“…A series of recent research studies conducted by Steffensmeier and colleagues (Steffensmeier, Lu, and Kumar 2019;Steffensmeier, Lu and Na 2020;Steffensmeier, Zhong, and Lu 2017) examined whether Hirschi and Gottfredson's (1983) thesis on the age-crime curve, which is considered a major theory of developmental and life-course criminology and desistance (see Weaver 2019), applies to Asian countries, including Taiwan (Steffensmeier et al 2017), India (Steffensmeier et al 2019), and South Korea (Steffensmeier et al 2020). They have found that Hirschi and Gottfredson's (1983) thesis does not directly apply to these Asian countries because the age-crime patterns in these countries, particularly the peak age of crime, are distinct from those in the US, where the thesis was developed (Steffensmeier et al 2017(Steffensmeier et al , 2019(Steffensmeier et al , 2020. Suzuki et al (2018) systematically reviewed existing studies that examined the extent to which five main criminological theories, including strain, social learning, control, routine activity, and developmental and life-course, are supported in the Asian context.…”

Diversity and burglary: Do community differences matter?

“…Additionally, the tendency to commit crimes can change over time, regardless of age (Piquero, Farrington, & Blumstein, ). Recent comparative studies that used crime data from Taiwan and the USA found a considerable divergence from the age effect on crime (Steffensmeier, Zhong, & Lu, ). We therefore include population age diversity as a variable to investigate its relationship with crime, but with a prediction that different measures of diversity will identify different relationships.…”