Christopher Salvatore: Arrested Adolescent Offenders: A Study of Delayed Transitions to Adulthood LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC, 2013, 162 pp, ISBN: 9781593325916

Christopher Salvatore explores the effects of emerging adulthood on recent generations, arguing that it produces a new type of offender, the arrested adolescent. Salvatore believes that the emergence of this new stage may be having an adverse effect on juveniles by extending the period of adolescence. To do so, he describes different theories and research that focuses on adolescents, particularly adolescents with criminal offenses and the implications of life course theory. His study reveals not only the effects of the new period of the life course on juveniles but also the changes occurring in the criminal justice system and avenues of new research. This book does not look to exploit a theory. Rather, it seeks to better understand emerging adults who engage in criminal behavior in order to preserve their future generations instead of criminalizing them. This study provides insight into what may be causing youth to extend past the ‘‘typical age’’ of criminal behavior. In Chapter 1, Salvatore explores the meaning of emerging adulthood and the implications it has on adolescent crime patterns. In present society, the gap between adolescence and adulthood has lengthened due to postponed marriage and childbearing, extended education and self-exploration. Salvatore understands emerging adulthood as a contemporary term describing the period of time lasting from age 18 to 25, but also a period that may continue through the late twenties and thirties. This newly recognized stage of development has created a new offender type through low-level offenders who usually peak early on the ‘‘age crime curve’’ (Salvatore 2013, p. 1). ‘‘The age of crime curve refers to the age distribution of crime...the onset of criminality is typically around age 10, offending peaks between the ages of 15 and 19, and then gradually declines until about age 55 where the ageadjusted rate of criminality is close to zero’’ (Salvatore 2013, p. 1). The author relies on the conceptualization offered by T. E. Moffitt, who created a classification of different offender types. The first type are abstainers who commit no crime, create good social bonds, transition promptly during turning points, and have no neuropsychological deficiencies. The second type is the adolescent limited offender or AL whose level of crime is low during teenage years and decreases as they age out of adolescence and progress into traditional life course turning points. An example of this is committing shoplifting or public disorder crimes until reaching the end of adolescence and sustaining full-time employment as a turning point. This low-level crime is usually brought about by role confusion caused by the gap in biological maturity and cultural maturity. AL members who do not transition into culturally defined turning points, for example marriage, continue as low level arrested adolescents (AAO), which creates the third offender subgroup. These individuals have the same characteristics but AAO’s have failed to create adult social bonds which further extend their criminal behavior. The last offender subgroup consists of the ‘‘life course persistent’’ offenders or LCPs who commit serious, predatory crimes and have poor social bonds, absent turning points, and neuropsychological deficiencies. These different categories reveal the purpose of the study which is to identify whether this new stage of development is inducing ‘‘offending trajectories’’ by lengthening adolescent limited offenders’ active crime period. Chapter 1 also identifies the challenges that the lengthened trajectories of crime create for the Criminal Justice system. The first is a rise in courts’ and correctional D. Foster (&) Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA e-mail: darfoste@indiana.edu