The onset of adult offending: A neglected dimension of the criminal career

The conventional wisdom in criminology is that adult onset of offending is a rare event. Closer examination of the extant literature that use official records, however, reveals that an average of 50 percent of adult offenders initiate offending at age eighteen or older. Although criminological research has investigated late onset offending in adolescence, there is little research on adult onset offending and the correlates of adult offending. Using police contact and interview data from the 1942 and 1949 birth cohort data from Racine, WI, this study investigated the correlates of crime for adult onset and persistent offenders. The results show that employment is the only correlate to affect the probability of adult offending differently for previously delinquent and nondelinquent offenders. This article concludes by highlighting the neglect of research on adult offenders, specifically the large percentage of adult onset offenders, and calling for more research on this topic.     

Politics Lost, Politics Transformed, Politics Colonised? Theories of the Impact of Mass Media

In recent years, there has been a substantial increase in the literature on the relationship between politics and mass media, mainly in discrete topic areas such as the impact of mass media on electoral behaviour, the emergence of new forms of political communication, or media political economy. At the same time, this diverse literature has often focused on a single general issue, typically characterised in terms of the 'transformation' of politics. Despite this common theme, there has been relatively little attempt to connect and compare the different approaches. Looking at the theoretical differences in the new literature on politics and mass media reveals three perspectives – pluralist, constructivist, and structuralist. These approaches have too often tacitly co-existed, instead of more competitively striving to advance knowledge in the three main topic areas above.     

SPLIT IDENTITY AND CHILDREN OF DIVORCE

Divorce, although a statistical norm, is a developmental trauma to the children involved. This article looks at the two-camp emotional environment of a divorcing family and its effect on the formation of a child's identity. By examining developmental ages, chosen according to divorce research, the author attempts to show how the interspouse emotional cathexes negatively affect a child's sense of self in ways specific to the child's age at the divorce.