CCJS 105 Chapter Notes - Chapter 11: 5Star, Dating Abuse, Social Capital

• School: University of Maryland
• Department: Criminology and Criminal Justice
• Course: CCJS 105
• Professor: Kiminori Nakamura

Document Summary

Concerned with onset, acceleration, and deceleration of offending, and desisting altogether. Delinquency: a legal term that distinguishes between youthful (juvenile) offenders and adult offenders. Acts forbidden by law are called delinquent acts when committed by juveniles. Age-crime curve: the statistical count of the number of known crimes committed in a population over a given period mapped according to age. Sharp increase in offending beginning in early adolescence, a peak during mid-adolescence, and then a steep decline during early adulthood followed by a steadier decline thereafter. Some criminologists attempt to explain the rise by the increase in peer involvement in adolescence and the decline by the decreasing influence of peers and the increasing influence of girlfriends, wives, children, and employers. The immature behavior of many adolescents is mirrored by the immaturity of their brains. There are physical reasons for the greater ratio of emotional to rational responses evidenced by many teens.