The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of the Liberal Arts THE AGE-CRIME RELATIONSHIP ACROSS TIME AND OFFENSE TYPES: A COMPARISON OF THE UNITED STATES AND TAIWAN A Thesis in Sociology by Hua Zhong © 2005 Hua Zhong Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2005 The thesis of Hua Zhong was reviewed and approved* by the following: Darrell Steffensmeier Professor of Sociology and Crime, Law and Justice Thesis Advisor Chair of Committee Eric Silver Associate Professor of Sociology and Crime, Law and Justice Jeffery Ulmer Associate Professor of Sociology and Crime, Law and Justice Rukmalie Jayakody Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Studies and Demography Paul Amato Professor of Sociology and Demography Head of the Department of Department of Sociology *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School iii ABSTRACT Although scholars agree that crime tends to rise and peak in adolescence or early adulthood and decline afterwards, there is a contentious debate in the criminological literature about whether and to what extent the shape or form of the age-crime curve varies across historical periods, geographic locations, and crime types. The invariancy view, most strongly articulated by Hirschi and Gottfredson (1983), is that the age-crime relationship is universal and invariant across all social and cultural conditions and all social groups at all times. Writers holding the variancy position contend (e.g., Greenberg 1985; Steffensmeier, Allan, Harer and Streifel 1989; Tittle and Grasmick 1998) that there is fact considerable variation across crime types and across countries or historical periods. A central feature of this debate concerns whether development increases youth crime involvement and then changes the age-crime distribution. The present study addresses these issues by examining the age-crime relationship in Taiwan over the period of 1961- 1991. Taiwan is a strategic research site mainly because it has undergone considerable development over the past several decades and, in fact, has moved from being classified as a developing nation to a developed nation. Specifically, four hypotheses guide the research: (1) comparing age-crime distributions in Taiwan over the entire1960-1990 time frame, the distributions shift to a younger distribution with development; (2) based on both Taiwan and US arrest data, the age-crime curves in both nations should move to a younger distribution and peak earlier in the process of development; (3) due to cultural differences, there might be variations between Taiwan’s age-crime curves and the United States’ age-crime curves even at iv similar level of development; (4) markers of development predict changes (if they have occurred) in the age-crime distribution over the 1960-1990 period. Descriptive techniques and advanced time-series analysis are applied to examine these hypotheses. Overall, the results indicate that for general property offenses (except typical adult crime such as fraud), Taiwan’s age-crime curves have shifted to a younger age distribution over this time period as predicted by the variancy position. Moreover, the forces of development are especially useful for explaining these shifts. Such shifts and effects of development are not found for violent offenses and total offenses, which may be at least partially due to the continuity of traditional Chinese culture. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES .....................................................................................................vii LIST OF TABLES.......................................................................................................viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.........................................................................................ix Chapter 1 Introduction ............................................................................................1 Background....................................................................................................4 Invariancy Position.................................................................................4 Variancy Position ...................................................................................7 Taiwan as a Strategic Research Site..............................................................16 Political History......................................................................................18 Military Draft of Youth ..........................................................................21 Economic Development .........................................................................22 People.....................................................................................................25 Culture....................................................................................................27 The Impact of Development on Taiwan Youth......................................31 Expectations of This Study............................................................................33 Chapter 2 Data and Methods...................................................................................36 Data Sources..................................................................................................36 Official Arrest Reports as Crime Counts in Taiwan ..............................37 Population Numbers in Taiwan..............................................................40 The Arrest Statistics and Population Figures in the United States.........42 Social & Economic Indicators in Taiwan ..............................................43 Measures of Dependent Variables.................................................................43 Measurement of Development ...............................................................45 Measures of Control Variables......................................................................48 Statistical Analysis ........................................................................................52 Descriptive Techniques: to Compare/Contrast Age-Crime Curves in 1961, 1976 and 1991.......................................................................52 Time-Series Methodology: Dickey-Fuller Test & Annual Time- Series Regression Model for Trends of Youth Share of Crime Involvement, 1966-1991 .................................................................57 Summary........................................................................................................60 Chapter 3 Descriptive Analysis ..............................................................................62 vi Taiwan Age-Crime Curves............................................................................62 Age Curves for Violent Offenses...........................................................63 Age Curves for Property Offenses .........................................................65 Curves for Total Offenses ......................................................................67 Statistical Assessment of Age Shifts in Age-Crime Curve....................67 The Dissimilarity Test............................................................................69 Comparing Taiwan and the United States.....................................................70 Summary........................................................................................................74 Chapter 4 Time-Series Analysis .............................................................................88 Augmented Dickey-Fuller Tests....................................................................88 Annual Time-Series Regression Models.......................................................94 Testing for Multicollinearity ..................................................................96 Results of the Regression Analysis ........................................................98 Supplemental Analyses ..........................................................................100 Summary........................................................................................................104 Chapter 5 Discussion and Conclusion ....................................................................115 Discussion......................................................................................................115 Major Findings .......................................................................................116 Explanations of the Findings..................................................................119 Implications of This Study .....................................................................121 Caveats and Avenues for Future Studies................................................126 Conclusion.....................................................................................................128 Bibliography ................................................................................................................131 Appendix A List of Taiwan Arrest Reports by Age and Offense Categories.............145 Appendix B Percentage Age Involvement of Arrests in Taiwan, 1961, 1976 and 1991 ......................................................................................................................146 Appendix C Percentage Age Involvement of Arrests in Taiwan (Breakdown by Individual Ages 10-29), 1976 and 1991 ...............................................................147 Appendix D Values of Juvenile Crime Rates, Adult Crime Rates, PAI, and Log Ratio......................................................................................................................149