Sexual Violence Age-Crime Curves in National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)

• In Event: Lightning Talk: Offending and Predicting Offending

Abstract

Purpose: Sexual Violence (SV) is a preventable public health problem that can lead to long-lasting, adverse health consequences for victims. Though criminologists have observed people age-out of participating in criminal activity, limited attention has been given to perpetrators’ age-crime curves for SV-related offenses. This study’s objective was to assess whether there is evidence that SV varies as a function of perpetrator’s age.
Design: The study used publicly available data files to examine perpetrator characteristics from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) to analyze SV offenses between 1991 and 2019. Analyses used 2015-2019 data from the American Community Survey (n=15,947,624 survey participants) for denominators. The analyses quantitatively characterized SV perpetrator age-crime curves and stratified by race.
Findings: From the 76,326,180 incidents in NIBRS, we found that 2.5% (n=1,567,379) of the offenses included an SV-related crime. The age-crime curve indicates SV-related offences varied as a function of perpetrator’s age. The curve is an inverted u-shape distribution—where rates of crime perpetration are low during and before early teen-age years, rise during late-teen and early twenties, and begin to decrease starting in the mid-twenties
Conclusion: Evidence supports primary prevention efforts begin before late teens using a comprehensive and multi-sector approach.

Authors

• Carlos Siordia, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

• Hui Zhang Kudon, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention