theory within criminology can be found in the work of August Aichhorn. In applying psychoanalysis to pedagogy, he argued that abnormal child development stemming from relationship difficulties underlies many instances of delinquency. He believed that within insecure child-parent relationships, socialization may go awry, causing an arrest in the child's development allowing latent delinquency to become dominant. The intersection of crime and attachment theory was further researched by John Bowlby. In his first published work, Forty-four Juvenile Thieves, he studied a sample of 88 children (44 juvenile thieves and 44 non-delinquent controls) to investigate the home life experiences of these two groups. It was identified that child-mother separation was a causative factor in delinquent character formation, particularly in the development of an "affectionless character" often seen in the persistent offender. 17 of the juvenile thieves had been separated from their mothers for longer than six months during their first five years, and only 2 children from the control group had such a separation. He also found that 14 of the thieves were "affectionless characters" distinguishing them from others by their lack of affection, no emotional ties, no real friendships, and having "no roots in their relationships". He wrote: These 'affectionless' delinquents were children who, in the first 12 months of life, either had formed a bond with their mother which had subsequently been disrupted, or failed to form a bond at all. 14 of the 17 affectionless delinquents had experienced multiple moves between caregivers. Amongst the control group, there were no affectionless characters. He also noted that delinquents of an 'Affectionless Character' were far more likely to steal in a persistent and serious way than are delinquents of other types. Age distribution of crime The relationship between age and crime is one of the most replicated findings in criminology. It has been named "one of the brute facts of criminology" claiming that "no fact about crime is more widely accepted." It has shown that the prevalence of offending increases during adolescence, peaks around the late teenage years and early twenties, and subsequently decreases sharply. Whilst the age-crime curve is regarded as fact, the mechanisms driving it are largely disputed. The two main theories, developmental theory and life-course theory, have attachment theory in their origin. Developmental perspectives place importance on the role of childhood experiences, and argue that this can determine criminal patterns later on i.e. individuals who have disrupted childhood attachments,