CO-OFFENDING, AGE, GENDER AND CRIME TYPE: IMPLICATIONS FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE POLICY

It has long been reported that many crimes are committed in groups, yet few studies of co-offending exist. In this paper, we argue that large-scale information on the prevalence of co-offending and its variations across age, gender and crime type is essential for the development of criminological theory and for the accurate estimation of important criminal justice measures like the probability of conviction and the incapacitative effects of imprisonment. To this end, we present results from the most extensive multivariate analysis of co-offending available in the United Kingdom to date. Findings indicate that a minority of detected crime implicated multiple offenders, and that co-offending decreased with age, was greater for females and was most common for robbery and burglary. Age, gender and crime type independently predicted co-offending. Implications for criminal justice policy and theory are discussed.