“The Case of the ‘Great American Burglary Decline’ of the 2010s and the Missing Teenage Burglars.”

• In Event: Macrostructures, Cultural Criminology and Crime

Abstract

A growing body of literature has documented the decline in teenage and juvenile offending. While we have some initial indications of the causes of this decline, less research has examined the potential impact on overall crime rates and trends. The current study addresses the decline in teenage offending and its impact on burglary trends. The rate of burglary declined by more than 50% during the 2010s, at roughly the same period and magnitude of the decline in teenage arrests. I assess the impact of what Osgood (2023) calls the ‘fall of the teen culture of independence’ on arrests of 15-19 year olds for burglary and overall burglary rates at the state level. The data for this analysis spans from 2000 to 2019, examining the impact of fewer teenagers partaking in adult activities, such as driving and engaging in sex. I use proxy measures of teenage automotive/transportation deaths and fertility to assess the impact of the decline in teenage independence on the ‘missing’ teenage burglars. Preliminary analyses (hierarchical linear modeling) are supportive of the association between a decline in teenage independence and a state-level burglary decline.

Author

• James Tuttle, University of Montana