From Cradle to Grave: Crime Across the Entire Life Course

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract

One of the biggest challenges of conducting research on crime across the life-course is acquiring data across the entire life for a large sample of individuals. The Nordic registers represent some of the most powerful sources of data for analyzing crime over the life-course. The Nordic countries (Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland) have each gathered information on all registered residents (up to 9 million people in Sweden) from as far back as the mid-16th Century. Since approximately the mid-20th Century these data have been stored electronically in national databases for each country. These data include information on, for example, neighborhood, family, education, income, and health. The register databases thus contain 60 or more years of individual- , family- , and neighborhood-level data for tens of millions of people. The studies presented in this panel cover a range of age cohorts and periods from birth through late adulthood. They cover the long-term effects of institutional care in Sweden (Sarnecki & Axelsson), the accumulation of risk factors across the life-course in Finland (Eisman, Savolainen, & Mason), long-term recidivism patterns in Sweden (Sivertsson), and the effects of reemployment on the time to recidivism in Norway (Kastoryano, Beyhum, & Skardhamar).

Sub Unit

• Area III: Perspectives on Crime and Criminal Behavior / 6: Developmental and Life Course Perspectives

Individual Presentations

• Institutional care for youths in Stockholm from a life-course perspective - Jerzy Sarnecki, University of Stockholm; Johan Axelsson, Stockholm University

• Psychological deficits and socioeconomic disadvantage: Illuminating the path from cumulative risk to substance misuse and crime - Andria Eisman, University of Michigan; Jukka Savolainen, University of Michigan; W. Alex Mason, Boys Town National Research Institute for Child and Family Studies

• Catching up in crime? Long-term processes of recidivism within the criminal histories of convicted males and females - Fredrik Sivertsson, Stockholm University

• How do economic conditions and finding a job affect criminal recidivism? Decomposition of policy and treatment effects with duration outcomes - Stephen P. Kastoryano, University of Mannheim; Jad Beyhum, University of Mannheim; Torbjorn Skardhamar, University of Oslo