Criminal Careers in the Dutch and Finnish Birth Cohorts from the 1980s

• In Event: Contemplating Criminal Career Dimensions

Abstract

This study compares criminal careers between the Netherlands and Finland using nationwide birth cohort samples, addressing questions on crime prevalence, frequency and mix, and examining different criminal trajectories between ages 15-27 among both genders. The Dutch sample includes all people born in the Netherlands in 1984 (n=171,000), while the Finnish sample (n=5,300) represents people born in Finland in 1981. Both samples have a balanced gender distribution. In both data, crime is measured through a police register, yielding information on those suspected of crime. The prevalence of crime in the Dutch cohort was 18% and 23% in Finland. In both countries, the most prevalent crime types were stealing, traffic offending, violence, damaging property, drug offending, and crimes against the public order. Data from both countries corroborate the link between age and the prevalence of crime (but not lambda). In both countries, newcomers to crime appear throughout the observation period, adult-onset offending not being so rare as earlier studies suggest. In both countries, crime concentrates in a small group of active recidivists. Despite differences in individual crime titles and the level of prevalence, the comparison yields a rather similar picture of the development of crime along the life-course regardless of national boundaries.

Authors

• Henrik Elonheimo, University of Turku

• Arjan A.J. Blokland, NSCR