NCJ Number
237486
Journal
Criminology and Criminal Justice Volume: 11 Issue: 5 Dated: November 2011 Pages: 487-513
Date Published
November 2011
Length
27 pages
Annotation
This study examined the occurrence of key life events such as marriage, employment, and military service, and desistance from crime.
Abstract
In recent years a number of studies have observed empirical associations between the occurrence of key life events such as marriage, employment, and military service, and desistance from crime. The relationships between these life-course transitions and changes in criminal behavior have been cited as evidence in support of social control and social learning theories of delinquency and in contradiction to alternative theoretical perspectives that downplay the significance of life events in the development of criminal behavior over the lifespan. In this paper the authors develop and test an alternative explanation for the apparent impact of marriage on criminal and delinquent behavior. The authors argue that transitions such as marriage might also promote desistance, in part, by enabling offenders to develop and exercise increased self-control. The authors then test this hypothesis using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) and explore the implications of the findings for the study of desistance and for self-control theory. (Published Abstract)