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The Pittsburgh Girls Study and the Prevalence of Self-Reported Delinquency

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Female Delinquency From Childhood To Young Adulthood

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Criminology ((BRIEFSCRIMINOL))

Abstract

This chapter reports the yearly follow-ups of the four cohorts of girls in the PGS (n = 2450) in terms of their yearly self-reported delinquency admissions between ages 11 and 19. High cooperation characterized the girls’ participation over the years, with 87 % of the sample being interviewed at age 19. Forty percent of the girls reported engaging in one or more delinquent acts between the ages of 11–19, with serious violence being the most common form of offending. The age–crime curves show that the prevalence of offending gradually increased from age 11 to a peak at age 14–15, and then declined. This applied to moderate and serious violence, while moderate and serious theft peaked at ages 15–16 and then declined. In contrast, the prevalence of drug dealing almost increased almost linearly from age 12 through age 19.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    At earlier ages we used a different measurement instrument for antisocial behavior, which is why the present analyses started with age 11 data.

  2. 2.

    Earlier publications mention 2451 participants, but one participant was not assessed properly.

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Loeber, R., Jennings, W.G., Ahonen, L., Piquero, A.R., Farrington, D.P. (2017). The Pittsburgh Girls Study and the Prevalence of Self-Reported Delinquency. In: Female Delinquency From Childhood To Young Adulthood. SpringerBriefs in Criminology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48030-5_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48030-5_2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-48029-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-48030-5

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