Crime and Violence in Older Adults: Findings From the 2002 to 2017 National Survey on Drug Use and Health

Abstract

Studies on criminal behaviors largely focus on youth and younger adults. While criminal engagement declines with age, the aging population and significant costs associated with older offenders warrant their increased clinical and research attention. The present study utilizes data from the 2002 to 2017 National Survey on Drug Use and Health to estimate the prevalence and explore the sociodemographic and psychosocial correlates of criminal behavior in adults aged 50 years and older. The overall prevalence of older adults engaging in criminal behaviors during this time was approximately 1.20%. There was no significant difference in crime involvement between adults aged 50 to 64 years and 65 years and older. Older individuals who committed crimes were more likely to be male and Black and earning low income. Criminality was also associated with use of illicit substances and depression as well as receipt of mental health treatment.

Keywords

criminal behavior older adults drug use depression prevalence

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Acierno

Hernandez-Tejada

Muzzy

Steve

(2009). National elder mistreatment study. http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/226456.pdf

Archer

Graham-Kevan

Davies

(2005). Testosterone and aggression: A reanalysis of Book, Starzyk, and Quinsey’s (2001) study. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 10(2), 241–261.

Binswanger

I. A.

Krueger

P. M.

Steiner

J. F.

(2009). Prevalence of chronic medical conditions among jail and prison inmates in the USA compared with the general population. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 63(11), 912–919.

Book

A. S.

Starzyk

K. B.

Quinsey

V. L.

(2001). The relationship between testosterone and aggression: A meta-analysis. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 6(6), 579–599.

Bronson

Carson

E. A.

(2019). Prisoners in 2017 (NCJ 252156). Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Carson

E. A.

(2015). Prisoners in 2014 (NCJ 248995). U.S. Prison Population, Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Carson

E. A.

Sabol

W. J.

(2016). Special report: Aging of the state prison population, 1993-2013 (NCJ 248766). https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/aspp9313.pdf

DeLisi

Vaughn

M. G.

(2015). Correlates of crime. In Piquero

A. R.

(Ed.), Handbook of criminological theory (pp. 18–36). Wiley-Blackwell.

DeLisi

Vaughn

M. G.

Salas-Wright

C. P.

Jennings

(2015). Drugged and dangerous: Prevalence and variants of substance use comorbidity among seriously violent offenders in the United States. Journal of Drug Issues, 45, 232–248.

10.

Fazel

Grann

(2002). Older criminals: A descriptive study of psychiatrically examined offenders in Sweden. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 17(10), 907–913.

11.

Fazel

Jacoby

(2003). Psychiatric aspects of crime and the elderly. In Jacoby

Oppenheimer

(Eds.), Psychiatry in the elderly (3rd ed., pp. 919–931). Oxford University Press.

12.

Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2019a). Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS): Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program. https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/ucr

13.

Federal Bureau of Investigation: Uniform Crime Reporting. (2019b). Crime in the U.S. 2017. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017

14.

Federal Bureau of Prisons. (2019). Statistics: Inmate age. https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_age.jsp

15.

Gottfried

E. D.

Christopher

S. C.

(2017). Mental disorders among criminal offenders: a review of the literature. Journal of Correctional Health Care, 23(3), 336-346.

16.

Haesen

Merkt

Imber

Elger

Wangmo

(2019). Substance use and other mental health disorders among older prisoners. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 62, 20–31.

17.

Han

B. H.

Moore

A. A.

Sherman

Keyes

K. M.

Palamar

J. J.

(2017). Demographic trends of binge alcohol use and alcohol use disorders among older adults in the United States, 2005–2014. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 170, 198–207.

18.

Hidalgo

Goodman

(2013). Multivariate or multivariable regression? American Journal of Public Health, 103(1), 39–40.

19.

Holzer

K. J.

Salas-Wright

C. P.

Vaughn

M. G.

Landess

(2018). Gender differences in the trends and correlates of major depressive episodes among juvenile offenders in the United States. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 80, 72–80.

20.

Kakoullis

Le Mesurier

Kingston

(2010). The mental health of older prisoners. International Psychogeriatrics, 22(5), 693-701.

21.

Kearney

M. S.

Harris

B. H.

Jácome

Parker

(2014). Ten economic facts about crime and incarceration in the United States. http://mass-gov-courts.org/files/v8_THP_10CrimeFacts.pdf

22.

Kratcoski

P. C.

(2018). Trends in types of crimes committed by the elderly in the United States. In Kratcoski

P. C.

Edelbacher

(Eds.), Perspectives on elderly crime and victimization (pp. 5-24). Springer.

23.

Kratcoski

Edelbacher

(2016). Trends the criminality and victimization of the elderly. Federal Probation, 80(1), 58–63.

24.

C. C.

(2004). Sociodemographic factors, drug abuse, and other crimes: How they vary among male and female arrestees. Journal of Criminal Justice, 32(5), 399–409.

25.

Loeber

Farrington

D. P.

(2014). Age-crime curve. In Bruinsma

Weisburd

(Eds.), Encyclopedia of criminology and criminal justice (pp. 12–18). Springer.

26.

Maschi

Dasarathy

(2019). Social determinants and mental health among older adults in the criminal justice system. In Balasubramaniam

Gupta

Tampi

R. R.

(Eds.), Psychiatric ethics in late-life patients (pp. 185–202). Springer.

27.

Menard

(2012). Age, criminal victimization, and offending: Changing relationships from adolescence to middle adulthood. Victims & Offenders, 7(3), 227–254.

28.

Moffitt

T. E.

(2003). Life-course-persistent and adolescence-limited antisocial behavior: A 10-year research review and a research agenda. In Lahey

B. B.

Moffitt

T. E.

Caspi

(Eds.), Causes of conduct disorder and juvenile delinquency (pp. 49–75). The Guilford Press.

29.

Morenoff

J. D.

(2005). Racial and ethnic disparities in crime and delinquency in the United States. In Rutter

Tienda

(Eds.), Ethnicity and causal mechanisms (pp. 139–173). Cambridge University Press.

30.

Office of Justice Programs. (2019). Bureau of Justice Statistics: National Crime Victimization Survey. https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=dcdetail&iid=245

31.

Salas-Wright

C. P.

Vaughn

M. G.

Cummings-Vaughn

L. A.

Holzer

K. J.

Nelson

E. J.

AbiNader

(2017). Trends and correlates of marijuana use among late middle-aged and older adults in the United States, 2002–2014. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 171, 97–106.

32.

Sampson

R. J.

Lauritsen

J. L.

(1997). Racial and ethnic disparities in crime and criminal justice in the United States. In Tonry

(Ed.), Ethnicity, crime, and immigration: Comparative and cross-national perspectives, crime and justice. An annual review of research (Vol. 21, pp. 311–374). University of Chicago Press.

33.

Snyder

H. N.

(2011). Arrest in the United States, 1980-2009. US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics. http://bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/aus8009.pdf

34.

Stoliker

B. E.

Galli

P. M.

(2019). An examination of mental health and psychiatric care among older prisoners in the United States. Victims & Offenders, 14(4), 480–509.

35.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data Archive. (2014). How do I account for complex sampling design when analyzing NSDUH data? http://samhda-faqs.blogspot.com/2014/03/how-do-i-account-complex-sampling.html

36.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2019). Welcome to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). https://nsduhweb.rti.org/respweb/homepage.cfm

37.

Ulmer

J. T.

Steffensmeier

D. J.

(2014). The age and crime relationship: Social variation, social explanations. In Beaver

K. M.

Barnes

J. C.

Boutwell

B. B.

(Eds.), The nurture versus biosocial debate in criminology: On the origins of criminal behavior and criminality (pp. 377–396). SAGE.

38.

Vaughn

M. G.

DeLisi

(2018). Criminal energetics: A theory of antisocial enhancement and criminal attenuation. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 38, 1–12.

39.

Vaughn

M. G.

DeLisi

Salas-Wright

Maynard

B. R.

(2014). Examining violence and externalizing behavior among youth in the United States: Is there a severe 5%? Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 12, 3–21.

40.

Vaughn

M. G.

Salas-Wright

C. P.

DeLisi

Shook

J. J.

Terzis

(2015). A typology of drug selling among young adults in the United States. Substance Use & Misuse, 50(3), 403–413.

41.

Williams

B. A.

Stern

M. F.

Mellow

Safer

Greifinger

R. B.

(2012). Aging in correctional custody: Setting a policy agenda for older prisoner health care. American Journal of Public Health, 102(8), 1475–1481.

42.

Winkelman

T. N.

Vickery

K. D.

Busch

A. M.

(2019). Tobacco use among non-elderly adults with and without criminal justice involvement in the past year: United States, 2008–2016. Addiction Science & Clinical Practice, 14(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13722-019-0131-y