The Freakonomics in-box regularly fills up with interesting tales (like this one and this one). The other day, a reader from Dallas named Erik Hille took reader e-mail to a whole new level. He was writing about the Feb. 1 entry in our fact-a-day calendar, which excerpts a fact from our book in the chapter on crime:
“The average sixty-five-year-old person is about one-fiftieth as likely to be arrested as the average teenager.”
As you will see, Hille turns reading into an interactive sport. I hope you enjoy his contribution as much as I did. Here’s what he had to say:
Being an actuarial retirement plan consultant, I was interested in why this might be true:
Most criminals have retired by age 65. They are better at planning for retirement and better at funding their retirement than the rest of us. Occupational hazards require early retirement. Geriatric conditions are not compatible with criminal behavior. The incidence of disability is high, and Social Security and disability benefits pay more than crime would for a disabled criminal (sort of like the Social Security argument below). Very few criminals have survived in the general population to age 65, due to mortality and permanent incarceration (otherwise know as a life term without parole). (It might be noted that when Social Security was first introduced, the average life expectancy [in the U.S.] was around 65, and only about 50 percent of the population was expected to actually live to collect Social Security benefits.) Social Security pays better than criminal activity (similar to your documentation of gang members making the equivalent of minimum wage). Criminals are not very good at inventing new modus operandi, and after being caught a few times for the same racket, they often realize that the cops are onto their schemes. Senior criminals are just better at [crime] than teenagers, and know how not to get caught. Senior criminals have all graduated to white-collar crime, and are no longer hunted by the police or included in crime statistics. New younger criminals and recent criminal immigrants have taken over that segment of the economy. Senior criminals have been promoted to management positions where they are less likely to be charged with a crime, as they are not directly associated with criminal acts under investigation. Senior criminals have hired younger criminals to do their work for them (a combination of the above two). It is generational: 45 to 55 years ago, when the current 65-year-old criminals were teenagers and would have been starting their criminal careers, a much smaller percentage of the population was engaged in criminal activity. Or, if they were engaged in criminal activity, such activity was later legalized (e.g., alcohol and pornography). Forty-five to 55 years ago, abortion was not legal, but shotgun weddings were culturally enforced. Thus, there were fewer children raised by single parents, and, by correlation, fewer criminals.
Is there anything that Mr. Hille hasn’t covered?
and 
. You can also watch it on 
Policemen don’t suspect people that look like grandpa? That’s looking at it from the other side.
I really think the social security argument is the best – but can you collect if you never paid?
First and foremost it would be that in a number of studies, male teenagers (who would make up the bulk of that statistic,) don’t have fully developed impulse control. I would be willing to bet that most of those teenage crimes would be related to impulse control issues and not be predicative of long term criminal behaviour.
Just the obvious — teenagers are fabulously bad at estimating consequences; in the case of bad behavior, they fail to establish an appropriate cost/benefit ratio estimate. Older people would tend to think harder about the balance between 90 seconds spent ripping out a car radio and the $15 reward at the pawn shop versus the consequence of jail time.
There is also the attrition factor. It’s relatively rare for a non-criminal to decide at 35 or 40 to suddenly become one, aside from CEOs and the occasional stock trader. But what seems like a good idea at 21 (becoming a teacher, for example), often seems like a mistake at 35 or 40. So you have people leaving the cohort without replacement.
Regardless of the incidence of outright disability, a lot of violent crime simply isn’t terribly amenable to aging bodies – the kind of athleticism a 20-year-old can engage in freely is a lot harder when you hit your 40s. As criminals age, the number of people they can physically overpower, outrun, etc, goes down; the number of viable crimes probably drops off pretty fast.
How about senior citizens are simply less likely to be arrested? The majority of crime isn’t Ocean’s Eleven-style. If say an 18-year-old and a 65-year-old are both caught shoplifting, who is more likely to get the silver bracelets?
In addition, I’m surprised that more is not included about police behavior. Profiling should definitely be on the list. I am 20 and have been pulled over more than once in the last six months for no apparent reason.
How about the obvious:
- People mature as they age (become less impetuous, less angsty, stop listening to the devil’s “rock” music, get haircuts, quit knocking over liquor stores, etc.).
Some cops feel it’s pointless to arrest an older person, “because you ain’t gonna change ‘em.”
The age-crime profile is similar across countries and time periods, suggesting that it is not related to institutional features of a country. I would suggest that the primary reasons are related to biology and time allocation. Biologically, teens are physically mature, but mentally less so. As a result, they are more prone to the quick and low payoff of criminal activity, while older individuals are not. As for time, teens have less marketable human capital, suggesting that they spend more time in the criminal sector.