ABSTRACT
Allegations of discriminatory practices have long been hurled in the direction of America’s criminal courts. Advanced age may be a mitigating factor in the enforcement of legal norms, at least with respect to nominal criminal offenses such as misdemeanant shoplifting. There is also Menachem Amir and G. Herman’s study of elderly criminality and its prosecution in Israel. As a case transits the criminal justice system it encounters a series of decision-making junctions where it is reviewed, evaluated, and disposed. Two sets of dependent variables are distinguished and opera-tionalized: Case Dispositions and Sanctions. The relevance of plea in predicting the likelihood of either withheld adjudications or convictions decreases as defendants reach advanced age. This suggests that advanced age supersedes the significance of the defendant’s plea in determining case disposition when charged with misdemeanant theft. Advanced age for whites and blacks appears to mitigate conviction through withheld adjudication.
