Data from the USA suggest that young people today commit crimes later on average than they did a few decades ago. Although the analysis is controversial, it seems clear that juvenile crime has been declining for years. Why this might be?
There is a phase in life when stupid ideas tend to accumulate. This biographical peak of problem-solving creativity occurs in the late teens. This time is reflected in crime statistics with such reliability that it seems as if there were some kind of natural law at work. The so-called age-crime curve shows that the number of criminal offenses increases steadily during the teenage years, reaches a peak and then falls again in young adulthood. This curve was first described in the 19th century and for a long time seemed so stable that some researchers called it an “immutable fact.” However, data from the USA now suggest that this fact may be able to be changed, because young people and adolescents commit crimes less often today than they did a few years ago. So there is a positive development that is relevant to everyday life behind what only seems to be an academic-statistical matter – and it is definitely worth a closer look.