Modelling social learning of adolescence-limited criminal behaviour

Abstract

Criminal behaviour exists in many variations, each with its own cause. A large group of offenders only shows criminal behaviour during adolescence. This kind of behaviour is largely influenced by the interaction with others, through social learning. This paper contributes a dynamical agent-based approach to simulate social learning of adolescence-limited criminal behaviour, illustrated for a small school class. The model is designed in such a way that it can be compared with data resulting from a large scale empirical study.