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Scholarship focused on factors that influence police reporting has a long history in the literature. Yet we lack a complete understanding of how these factors differentially influence reporting by age.

This paper aims to enhance our understanding of underreporting by investigating the relationship between reporting and age, and how this relationship differs by crime type. The study further investigates whether a variety of characteristics differentially influence reporting across the life course. Finally, the study asks how the nature of reporting varies by the victim's age.

National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) data were used to assess whether there are age-related differences in the factors influencing the rate and nature of police reporting.

The findings suggest that the rate of reporting differs by crime type but that it generally increases throughout the life course. The influence of …