Research > Other publications
Co-offending and patterns of juvenile crime
Juveniles often commit crimes in pairs or groups, a process known as co-offending. This American study found several patterns related to juvenile co-offending. The researchers linked co-offending with increased risks for recidivism and violence. They recommend early intervention targeting very young offenders, especially co-offenders, although more research is needed. But, they also caution that some interventions may enhance the effects of co-offending by placing youths in groups that unintentionally provide negative peer learning.
Title: Co-offending and patterns of juvenile crime
Authors: Joan McCord and Kevin P. Conway
Series: US National Institute of Justice, Research in Brief
Date published: December 2005
Number of pages: 20
Availability:
Download full report
PDF 2.45Mb
Offenders aged 13 and under are more likely to commit crimes in pairs and groups than 16- and 17- year-old offenders. About 40% of juvenile offenders commit most of their crimes with others. Co-offenders also are more likely than solo offenders to be recidivists. When very young co-offenders were compared with very young solo offenders, only the co-offenders had high recidivism rates and only the co-offenders committed high numbers of violent crimes. These young co-offenders warrant special attention from the criminal justice system.
Co-offending may increase the likelihood that offenders will commit violent crimes. When young offenders hang around with offenders who have previously used violence, the result appears to be an increase in the likelihood that they will subsequently commit a violent crime. Co-offending violence rose throughout adolescence among the study group.
These trends suggest that an effective strategy would be to intervene early in the development of a criminal trajectory and to especially target co-offenders. For example, police could inquire about co-offending and record all participants in a crime.
Because many juvenile crimes are committed in the company of others, crime rates cannot be accurately portrayed unless co-offending is accurately recorded. Yet inspection of recorded crime in the area studied indicates that attention has not focused on this feature of crime events. Too often, a crime was considered to be solved when a single arrest had been made.
Perhaps the greatest lesson from the report is to target youthful co-offenders in a way that reduces the likelihood that they will develop attitudes that promote crime. The study’s findings imply that lessons of violence are learned on the street, where knowledge is passed along through impromptu social contexts, including those in which offenders commit crimes together. Interaction among delinquent peers apparently serves to instigate crimes and to escalate their severity.
More research on this issue is warranted, especially studies that measure the effect of peer pressure, track the selection of accomplices, examine the way young offenders learn violence from each other, and identify individual offenders who may be particularly susceptible to (or unaffected by) the influence of violent accomplices. When developing and evaluating strategies designed to prevent or reduce violence, practitioners and evaluators may want to consider co-offending patterns, individuals’ choices of accomplices, and factors that increase the risk of co-offending, especially among very young offenders
Getting a copy
Download
Co-offending and patterns of juvenile crime
PDF 2.45Mb
Last update: 22 December 2005