What Is the Role of Changing Demographics?

• NCJ Number: 102840
• Author(s): A Blumstein
• Date Published: 1985
• Length: 23 pages
• Grant Number(s): 82-IJ-CX-0062
• Sponsoring Agency: National Institute of Justice (NIJ); US Dept of Justice NIJ Pub
• Corporate Author: California Dept of Justice
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Publication Type: Test/Measurement
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Crime Conference 85 - Proceedings

Annotation

Four panelists critique a presentation by Alfred Blumstein pertaining to the effect of age composition on a population's crime rate and a mathematical formula for isolating this effect so as to determine the effect of other factors on the crime rate.

Abstract

Blumstein presents graphic data and a mathematical formula to show that the age composition of a population systematically affects the crime rate from 15 to 40 percent. The mathematical formula presented isolates the demographic and criminality effects in year-to-year changes in aggregate crime rate. One panelist cautions against an undue emphasis on age as an inevitable factor in producing a crime-rate range, since so many social control factors impinge on the behaviors of persons in the supposed crime-prone age group. Another panelist warns against using a population's age composition patterns over the long term as a primary factor in corrections prison population projection. He argues for policy initiatives in sentencing that will change prison populations over the short term. A panelist questions Blumstein's computations of crime-specific rate variances by age composition.