CHANGES IN THE STRUCTURE OF LIFE COURSES AND THE DECLINE OF SOCIAL CAPITAL IN CANADIAN SOCIETY - A TIME-SERIES ANALYSIS OF PROPERTY CRIME RATES

One of the paradoxes of contemporary society is the trend in aggregate crime rates, a trend that, for all intents and purposes, has been con sistently upward in the post-war period. Because previous attempts to provide an account of both the motivational and opportunity prerequisi tes of crime have been relatively weak, the present paper proposes suc h a framework by integrating insights from life course research with a conception of the age stratification of social control. From this per spective, changes in the timing and order of life course events charac teristic of the transition from adolescence to adulthood have weakened social control mechanisms for late teens and young adults. When signi ficant life course events are delayed or removed, there is a consequen t decline in institutional bonds and social capital. It is theorized t hat these declines play an important role in aggregate crime rate tren ds by increasing the size of the pool of motivated offenders. This per spective was tested in a time series analysis of Canadian property cri me data and the results provide strong support for the proposed models . Further implications of this argument are also explored.