ABSTRACT
This chapter sketches a picture of the development of criminal behaviour during the transition to adulthood in the Netherlands. It uses the court registration data to illustrate the age-crime. The chapter addresses registered crimes that led to conviction and charges that were dismissed by the public prosecutor for reasons of policy, concisely referred to here as 'convictions'. It reviews a first 'sketch' of patterns of continuity and change in offending during early adulthood. The chapter conveys important information on criminal careers patterns among Dutch young adults and provides the foundation for more in-depth analysis. It refers to the 'steps of life' in a metaphorical staircase of life development, a concept that was popular in the Netherlands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A popular way of depicting the life course in Dutch sixteenth- and seventeenth-century folk art was by means of a metaphorical staircase.
