Changes in the Age Distribution of Arrests in Pennsylvania and Their Impact on the Age-Sentencing Relationship

• In Event: Processes and Context of Demographic Disparities in Criminal Courts

Abstract

The relationship between age and crime is said to be the most durable fact of criminology. Similarly, the influence of defendant age on punishment severity is also considered conventional wisdom in sentencing research. Age is simply treated as a control variable in most studies, but the few studies (from the 1990s) that focus on the age-sentencing relationship have found an inverted U-shaped relationship, with sentencing severity being lesser for adolescent offenders, most severe for those in their mid-20s, and then declining steadily after 40. However, major changes have occurred in the age distribution of arrests in Pennsylvania, especially for drug crimes in rural counties, with notable increases in proportions of older arrestees and declines in young arrestees since the early 2000s. These trends in drug crime may have altered the age-sentencing relationship, and no research has explored this possibility, in Pennsylvania or elsewhere. Our research assesses whether and how changes since the early-mid 2000s in Pennsylvania’s proportional age distribution of arrests have affected age-related sentencing patterns, especially for drug crimes, from 2001-2019. We utilize multilevel models examining the relationships between changes in county age distributions of arrests and age patterns in incarceration, sentence length, and rehabilitative alternatives to incarceration.

Authors

• Jeffery Ulmer, Pennsylvania State University

• Ashley Elizabeth Rodriguez, Pennsylvania State University