I mainly teach basic quantitative methods and I also supervise bachelor theses.

My research interest is in life course criminology and sociology with a focus on the development of crime over the life course. I use quantitative methods to analyze large longitudinal datasets and I am interested in methodology for the life course study. I am particularly interested in the link between individual and historical crime development.

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• Does sentence length affect the risk for criminal recidivism? A quasi-experimental study of three policy reforms in Sweden

  2022. Enes Al Weswasi (et al.). Journal of Experimental Criminology

  Article

  Objectives This study examines the relationship between incarceration time and post-release recidivism among first-time incarcerated adult offenders.

  Methods A quasi-experimental design was adopted consisting of three policy reforms that were treated as separate natural experiments. While holding imposed sentence length constant, these policy reforms either decreased or increased the required share of a sentence inmates needed to be incarcerated before being eligible for parole. Data consisted of large-scale administrative records containing all convictions for the Swedish cohorts born in 1958 and later.

  Results Results indicate that neither increased nor decreased incarceration time had a statistically significant effect on post-release recidivism, irrespective of how recidivism was measured.

  Conclusions Findings reveal little evidence for incarceration time having a criminogenic or specific preventive effect on post-release recidivism.

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• Färre men värre? En kohortanalys av lagförd våldsbrottslighet bland unga män födda 1985–1999

  2022. Fredrik Sivertsson, Anders Nilsson, Felipe Estrada. Det svenska tillståndet, 97-123

  Chapter

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• Is There a Long-Term Criminogenic Effect of the Exposure to a Paternal Conviction During Upbringing? An Analysis of Full Siblings Using Swedish Register Data

  2021. Fredrik Sivertsson, Christoffer Carlsson, Andreas Hoherz. Journal of quantitative criminology

  Article

  Objectives: The current study analyzed the association between a final paternal conviction that occurred sometime 10 years prior to birth through age 14 and subsequent child conviction risk to age 25.

  Methods: We used Swedish register-based data on a two-generation dataset originating from a parental generation born in 1953. We employed a combination of population-averaged models that controlled for measured confounding together with an analysis of full siblings that ruled out unmeasured confounding shared between full siblings.

  Results: The results showed that boys, but not girls, who were exposed to a paternal conviction during upbringing had an increased risk of being convicted themselves, net of measured and unmeasured familial confounds. There was, however, little indication for an age-effect at the time of a final paternal conviction, and there were no significant differences in violent crime between exposure-discordant siblings.

  Conclusions: The results provide evidence for an effect of the exposure to a paternal conviction on child subsequent conviction risk that cannot merely be explained by familial factors shared between full siblings. These results are, however, conditional on gender and on the type of criminal outcome.

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• Age, Gender, and Crime in a Stockholm Birth Cohort to Age 64

  2021. Christoffer Carlsson, Fredrik Sivertsson. Journal of developmental and life course criminology

  Article

  We study the criminal histories of 14,608 males and females in a full Stockholm birth cohort born in 1953 to age 64. Using an update of The Stockholm Birth Cohort Study data, we explore the amount of crimes recorded in the cohort before and after the advent of adulthood. We break down the age/crime curve into separate parameters, including onset, duration, and termination. Throughout, we utilize the large number of females (49%; n = 7 161) in the cohort, and compare long-term patterns of male and female criminal careers. Next, we focus on adulthood, and explore the existence and parameters of the adult-onset offender and its contribution to the overall volume of crime in the cohort. While crime peaks in adolescence, the main bulk of crimes in the cohort occurred after the dawning of adulthood. Nearly half of all male, and more than two-thirds of all female, crimes in the cohort occurred after age 25. In the case of violence, the majority of offences - around two-thirds for both genders - took place in adulthood. Around 23% of all males and 38% of all females with a criminal record in the cohort were first recorded for a criminal offence in adulthood. While a majority were convicted only once, a proportion of adult-onset offenders had a considerable risk of recidivism and repeated recidivism. These results suggest that quite a substantial proportion of the population initiate crime in adulthood, and that these offenders account for a nonnegligible proportion of adult crime.

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• Criminal convictions and immigrant background 1973–2017 in Sweden – have differences increased or declined?

  2021. Olof Bäckman (et al.). Nordic Journal of Criminology

  Article

  This study investigates Swedish conviction trends by individuals’ immigrant background for the period 1973–2017. The central research question is whether relative differences in conviction levels have increased, declined or remained unchanged over recent decades. This question is examined in part using a traditional cross-sectional approach, and in part using a cohort-based approach. All results are presented by gender, and results for the cohort-based approach also by holding socioeconomic background constant. The results show that conviction levels have decreased, to a greater extent among men than among women, irrespective of immigrant background. The level of overrepresentation among those born in Sweden to foreign-born parents has increased somewhat, while the overrepresentation of those born abroad has decreased towards the end of the period examined.

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• Poor family relationships in adolescence as a risk factor of in-patient psychiatric care across the life course

  2020. Susanne Alm (et al.). Scandinavian Journal of Public Health 48 (7), 726-732

  Article

  Background: Previous research has shown that poor family relations in childhood are associated with adverse mental health in adulthood. Yet, few studies have followed the offspring until late adulthood, and very few have had access to register-based data on hospitalisation due to psychiatric illness. The aim of this study was to examine the association between poor family relations in adolescence and the likelihood of in-patient psychiatric care across the life course up until age 55. Methods: Data were derived from the Stockholm Birth Cohort study, with information on 2638 individuals born in 1953. Information on family relations was based on interviews with the participants' mothers in 1968. Information on in-patient psychiatric treatment was derived from administrative registers from 1969 to 2008. Binary logistic regression was used. Results: Poor family relations in adolescence were associated with an increased risk of later in-patient treatment for a psychiatric diagnosis, even when adjusting for other adverse conditions in childhood. Further analyses showed that poor family relations in adolescence were a statistically significant predictor of in-patient psychiatric care up until age 36-45, but that the strength of the association attenuated over time. Conclusions: Poor family relationships during upbringing can have serious negative mental-health consequences that persist into mid-adulthood. However, the effect of poor family relations seems to abate with age. The findings point to the importance of effective interventions in families experiencing poor relationships.

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• Adulthood-limited offending

  2018. Fredrik Sivertsson. Journal of criminal justice 55, 58-70

  Article

  Purpose

  The current study explores male and female adult-onset offending careers in a Swedish population-based longitudinal dataset comprising five successive birth cohorts which are followed prospectively on the basis of detailed conviction data to age 50.

  Methods

  Adult-onset offenders are compared to juvenile-onset offenders on a number of criminal career measures. Growth curve analysis is employed to visualize average trajectories for convictions during adulthood.

  Results

  The study found that 22% of convicted males and 38% of convicted females were convicted for the first time for offenses committed between ages 25 and 50. The adult-onset males contributed 19% of all male adulthood convictions and 16% of male violent convictions in adulthood. The adult-onset females contributed 47% of all female adulthood convictions and 48% of female violent convictions in adulthood. While the adolescent-onset trajectories displayed generally decreasing trends for offending in adulthood, adult-onset females displayed increasing trends in relation to trajectories of violence and drug/alcohol-related offending as they approached middle adulthood.

  Conclusions

  There is a need for developmental and life-course theories of crime to be explicit in explaining adult-onset offending, particularly in relation to gender disparities.

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• Catching Up in Crime? Long-Term Processes of Recidivism Across Gender

  2016. Fredrik Sivertsson. Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology 2 (3), 371-395

  Article

  While males are heavily overrepresented in almost every crime category that may lead to a conviction, there is ambiguity in the predictive value of gender on recidivism patterns over the life course. By using a complete Swedish birth cohort born in 1965, the present study is able to examine the long-term recidivism patterns in a substantial number of convicted males (N = 27,071) and females (N = 7531) followed up to age 47. The aims are to (1) examine the extent to which long-term recidivism patterns are similar in males and females and (2) assess the predictive power of gender on recidivism as these males and females accumulate additional convictions over the course of their lives.

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• Continuity, Change, and Contradictions

  2015. Fredrik Sivertsson, Christoffer Carlsson. Criminal justice and behavior 42 (4), 382-411

  Article

  This study's point of departure is the current debate over the ability to make prospective long-term predictions of criminal offending based on childhood risk factors. We begin by constructing groups based on cumulative childhood risk and measure their subsequent criminal career outcomes. The results show clear differences in adult offending but also considerable heterogeneity, suggesting that the relationship between risk factors and individuals' subsequent offending or non-offending is complex and in need of closer study. We therefore identify individuals in the low-and high-risk groups who did not develop the criminal careers that could be expected from their risk scores and, using deviant case analysis, qualitatively analyze their life histories. Together, these cases inform us of the importance of the dynamics of risk, human agency, and the life course, as well as the historical influences under which their lives unfolded-features of social life that could in no way be predicted prospectively.

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• Participation and Frequency in Criminal Convictions across 25 Successive Birth Cohorts

  2021. Fredrik Sivertsson, Anders Nilsson, Olof Bäckman. Justice quarterly 38 (6), 995-1018

  Article

  Against the backdrop of an overall declining crime trend our overarching objective is to explore whether this development has concealed any degree of divergence between participation and frequency in crime. We employ Swedish longitudinal data comprising 25 complete birth cohorts born between 1960 and 1984 and followed to age 30 using convictions data. The results show a complex pattern of change, by which the crime rate partly conceals divergent processes between participation and frequency. In particular, among the males we find a consistent decrease in the size of the convicted population, whereas the frequency of crimes among convicted offenders has increased across cohorts born during the early 1970s and later. We discuss the results against both behavioral and reactional mechanisms and conclude that future crime trends research should consider a broad range of criminal career parameters which cannot be discerned using aggregate crime data.

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• Criminal Careers in the Long Run

  2018. Fredrik Sivertsson.

  Thesis (Doc)

  Why is it that a small proportion of the population accounts for the majority of crime? This question has stimulated a great deal of theoretical and methodological controversy in criminology. In essence, the debate is rooted in different theoretical underpinnings of continuity and change in crime, and the extent to which it is possible to foresee a life of crime by zeroing in on at-risk juvenile offenders. The current thesis explores four contentious empirical issues that may move this debate forward: the long-term predictability of persistent offending in adulthood on the basis of childhood risk factors (Study I); the magnitude of adult-onset offending (Study II); the predictive value of gender for criminal recidivism (Study III); and the association between birth cohort membership and criminal career parameters (Study IV). All four studies employ longitudinal Swedish administrative data, based on cohorts of individuals born between the early 1940s and the mid-1980s, and followed on the basis of detailed conviction data. The thesis also utilizes qualitative life-history narratives with former at-risk juvenile delinquents. The results suggest that theories aiming to explain crime beyond the transition to adulthood should incorporate factors presumed to cause within-individual change, even among high-risk juvenile offenders. Although childhood cumulative risk, including a wide range of individual, family, school, and peer measures, were clearly associated with adult crime, they had limited value for predicting those persistent offenders who eventually ended up in the tail of the crime distribution. Furthermore, although gender is generally one of the main demographic predictors of criminal convictions, the results indicate that it is important to include females for the purpose of understanding continuity and change in adulthood. This is in part because adult-onset offending is more prevalent within the female offending population than within the male offending population and in part because the risk for criminal recidivism among female offenders becomes increasingly similar to that found among male offenders as convictions accumulate over the life span. Finally, the results suggest that the typical criminal career has undergone significant changes both within and across gender groups during the period since the mid-1970s, a period which has witnessed a historical decline in the aggregate conviction rate in Sweden. Taking this into consideration, the employment and extensive analysis of longitudinal multiple cohort data ought to provide a basis for furthering our knowledge on the inherent complexity of crime trends, while at the same time also locating the study of criminal careers in its historical context.

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Show all publications by Fredrik Sivertsson at Stockholm University