By Anna Piil Damm · Britt Østergaard Larsen · Helena Skyt Nielsen · Marianne Simonsen

Objectives The questions of when and how society should sanction juvenile offenders are subject to ongoing political and scientific debates. In this study, we use a policy reform that lowered the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 14 years for a 20-month period to investigate whether lower age limits of prosecution and conviction in the legal system affect juvenile crime. Methods In a quasi-experimental design, we compare monthly crime rates for cohorts of 14-year-olds before, during, and after the temporary reform while controlling for the downward trend in youth crime. We use population-wide administrative registers (N=162,959 individuals) to estimate individual-month panel data models as well as a range of robustness checks. Results We find no evidence that lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility reduced the probability of committing crime among 14-year-olds. In fact, we observe an important increase in reported crimes during the reform, most evident among 14-year-olds with prior offending records. We find no reform effects on crime rates among 13-year-olds and 15-year-olds and the reported findings of no general deterrent effects are consistent across different crime types and robust to model specifications. Conclusions The age limits in the legal systems vary greatly across different jurisdictions and political discussions of when juvenile offenders should enter the criminal justice system are enduring. The findings from this study highlight important policy implications as the “tough-on-crime” motivated reform did not have the intended crime-reducing effects.

Journal of Quantitative Criminology , April 2025, 27p.

Edited by Franklin E. Zimring and David S. Tanenhaus 

This Is a hopeful but complicated era for those with ambitions to reform the juvenile courts and youth-serving public institutions in the United States. As advocates plea for major reforms, many fear the public backlash in making dramatic changes. Choosing the Future for American Juvenile Justice provides a look at the recent trends in juvenile justice as well as suggestions for reforms and policy changes in the future. Should youth be treated as adults when they break the law? How can youth be deterred from crime? What factors should be considered in how youth are punished?What role should the police have in schools?

New York; London: New York University Press, 2014. 257p.

By J.M. Hill

For the millennial generation, the transition to adulthood has become increasingly heterogeneous. These changes have led to a theory and body of research referred to as emerging adulthood. This period of life is of interest to criminologists because, as the well-known age crime curve indicates, during the early adult years the majority of young people who were engaged in delinquent behaviour as adolescents desist. Using a contemporary sample, this thesis firstly examines whether the concept of emerging adulthood is relevant to Dutch young adults, finding that, broadly speaking, it is. In an examination of the risk factors for delinquent behaviour are during emerging adulthood, parental support is found to protect against delinquency and excessive alcohol drinking is found to increase the risk of delinquency. In the remaining four chapters, the relevance of life-course theories of crime are tested. The evidence indicates that transitions into adult roles remain relevant for desistance from delinquency, but that changes in personality during this period also play a role. ‘Boomeranging’ between roles is found to increase the likelihood that young adults do not desist, and finally, achieving financial independence from parents is found to promote desistance, pointing to the importance of examining ‘new’ adult roles.

Leiden, Netherlands: Leiden University, 2017. 228p.

By Arthur Macdonald.

Including stigmata of degeneration being a hearing on the bill (h. R. 16733) to establish a laboratory for the study of the criminal, pauper, and defective classes. Before A Sub-Judiciary Committee Of The United States House Of Representatives.”To find whether or not there are any physical or mental characteristics that distinguish criminal children from other children. Such knowledge would make it possible to protect children in advance and lessen the chances of contamination.”

Harrow and Heston Classic Reprint. (1908) 337 pages.