NCJ Number
134675
Date Published
1990
Length
18 pages
Annotation
Data from 9,945 males born in Philadelphia in 1945 and 13,160 males born in Philadelphia in 1958 showed that a small percentage of the youths were chronic recidivists and revealed delinquency patterns and other characteristics of these youths.
Abstract
Six percent of the 1945 cohort and 7.5 percent of the 1958 cohort were arrested at least 5 times. The chronic recidivists among the 1958 cohort committed 61 percent of the total offenses compared to 51 percent for the 1945 cohort. This relationship held for both white and nonwhite offenders in the 1958 cohort, but only for nonwhite offenders in the 1945 cohort. Similarly, this chronic offender effect held for youths of lower socioeconomic status in the 1945 cohort and for both socioeconomic levels in the 1958 cohort. In addition, the offense seriousness was similar for chronic and nonchronic recidivists in the first cohort, whereas chronic offenders from the 1958 cohort committed more offenses and more serious offenses than did the nonchronic recidivists. Moreover, whites experienced a sharper chronic offender effect than did nonwhites in the 1958 cohort. Tables