NCJ Number
178476
Journal
Homicide Studies Volume: 3 Issue: 3 Dated: August 1999 Pages: 256-270
Date Published
1999
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This research contrasts data on age-specific violent offending by male offenders from the mid-19th century through the late 20th century in New York City and uses supplemental evidence to raise further questions about the continued surge in youth offense rates.
Abstract
Data were obtained from two sources: the FBI's Supplementary Homicide Rate (SHR) series for 1976-95 (pre-1976 SHR data report only victim's age) and a data set of New York City homicides from 1773 to 1874. For this study, homicide is defined as both manslaughter and murder. Population data for the denominators (1860 and 1990, each to the closest decade to the weighted center year for each group) were drawn from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series. Overall, the data analysis shows a sharp difference between 19th-century and 20th-century homicide offender age distributions. For the 20th century there is a sharp rise in the homicide rate for offenders under the age of 10 which peaks and levels off from the late teens to the early 20s, followed by a sharp decline in subsequent years. For the 19th century, the homicide rate from age 10 increased gradually to the mid-30s and persisted until late middle age, with a gradual decrease until the end of most active adult lives. These data pose the question as to whether the currently high rate of young age rate offending is an anomaly, the signal of a long-term trend, or an incremental increase. The data from this study suggest that lower age rate offending is new, but to establish more precisely when and how will require several more age-rate distributions. This article concludes with a discussion of the issues for further research to determine what factors may be influencing the age at which males commit homicides. 2 figures, 2 tables, and 33 references