Characteristics of offenders arrested for aggravated assault: a test of Easterlin's hypothesis, 1987

Varnedoe, Arnita D.

1980-1989

This thesis examines the relationship of aggravated assault to three variables: age, cohort, and time period over a 20-year period, 1965-1984. The researcher also tests Richard Easterlin's hypothesis: that large cohorts generate higher crime rates within a given population than small cohorts regardless of age and time period. This work has two major limitations. Though aggravated assault is a highly personalized crime, the statistical analysis does not deal with the personal and social charac teristics of either the perpetrator or the victim. Second, the displacement effect is not controlled for the multicollinearity between two or more criminal offenses. More over, the statistical analysis was limited to the Uniform Crime Reports. Employing regression analysis, the researcher de termined the relative impact of age, time period and cohort on the arrest rates of aggravated assaults from 1965 through 1984. The data source is the Uniform Crime Reports. The findings disclose: (1) the variable age alone has a more significant relationship to aggravated assault arrest rates than either period or cohort; (2) the variable age and period (together) are more significantly related to aggravated assault arrest rates than are age and cohort (together). Therefore, Easterlin's hypothesis is rejected. Large cohorts do not necessarily generate higher crime rates than small cohorts.

text

application/pdf

1987-05-01

thesis

Master of Arts (MA)

Atlanta University

Criminal Justice Administration

Murty, K.S.

Clark Atlanta University

Georgia--Atlanta

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12322/cau.td:1987_varnedoe_arnita_d