ABSTRACT
Much attention has been paid in research on the causes of delinquency to the role of such variables as class, sex, and race. By comparison, the relationship belween age and criminality or delinquency, though noted in passing in many studies, has received little systematic attention. This paper will present a theoretical analysis of the age distribution of criminal involvement. ln particular, I will attempt to show that the increasingly disproportionate involvement of juveniles in major crime categories, though not readily explained by current sociological theories of delinquency, can be understood as a consequence of the historically changing position of juveniles in industrial societies. This changing position, 1 will argue, has its origin, at least in Europe and the United States, in the long tem1 tendencies of a capitalist economic system. Although the conceptual framework for this analysis is Marxist, the approach taken appropriates Marxian theory for criminology in a way that departs from earlier Marxist writings on crime. The nature of this departure will be spelled out explicitly in the concluding section.
