Age Theory and Criminal Neutralizations in Ghana

• In Event: New Advancements in Research on the Links between Age, Crime & Victimization

Abstract

Age theory posits that criminals age out of deviant behavior, committing fewer crimes as they mature and reach advanced or middle age? Is this behavioral desistance from criminal activity matched by a cognitive desistance as well? Namely, do individuals, as they get older, express less willingness to commit hypothetical crimes, even under exculpatory circumstances? Utilizing the concept of techniques of neutralization to construct exculpatory circumstances in a factorial vignette survey design, and applying quantitative analysis, we find age correlates with reduced interest in crime and deviant behavior for a sample of college students in Ghana. An international validity check, comparing the Ghana results to similar but less age-differentiated samples in Poland and the United States, suggests the results from Ghana generalize, and age theory rightly includes a mental component.

Authors

• Edward Greenberg, University of Massachusetts, Lowell

• Malgorzata Justyna Zuber, University of Massachusetts, Lowell

• Linda Williams, University of Massachusetts, Lowell