Rethinking the age-crime curve: Neurobiological claims, international evidence, and sociocultural alternatives

Abstract

In this article, we use international data to evaluate two influential perspectives – the Hirschi-Gottfredson projection of an invariant age crime-curve marked by a rapid rise and sharp decline in offending from adolescence to early adulthood; second, the Dual Systems neural model, which attributes this pattern to a developmental imbalance between socioemotional and cognitive control brain systems, informing about whether the age-crime curve is biologically fixed or socially produced. We critically assess the empirical foundations of these claims, highlighting methodological limitations and inconsistent evidence. We then draw on historical and international data focused on non-Western countries, which demonstrate considerable variation in the age-crime relationship across social contexts. Our findings challenge invariance and biologically determined bases of explanation. Evidence of substantial variation across countries and time periods underscores the importance of sociocultural context in shaping age-crime patterns. We theorize how macro-level sociocultural factors – age-graded expectations, social roles and lifestyle, social control and integration, opportunity structures, and life-stage stressors – operate across the life-course to shape cross-national variation in age-crime patterns. We conclude by outlining directions for future research and theorizing about the age-crime relationship that would more fully integrate international variation and social development across the life course.