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.
What Is the Role of Changing Demographics?
NCJ Number
102840
Date Published
1985
Length
23 pages
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