Abstract
The study of desistance, the process by which individuals stop offending, is a dynamic field of interest to both academics and policymakers. This chapter reviews the existing theoretical thinking about desistance, and presents a new perspective on the role of identity change in desistance. We begin by verifying empirically that there are in fact people who offend throughout their life-course, and that desistance is not “normative.” In a departure from usual practice, we discuss these models within the framework of formal time series processes. We then present an argument for why identity change is the most promising theoretical direction for criminologists interested in desistance. Finally, we present long-term hazard models as a “new” approach for studying desistance. We close with a challenge to the field to think not just about ways to cause desistance, but also about ways to identify offenders who are in fact at low risk of reoffending (i.e., people who have desisted).
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
1
- 2.
2
The following is the simplest possible dynamic model. It can be generalized by including more lags. However, the basic concepts apply.
- 3.
3
Wright et al. (2004) finds, in contrast to Nagin and Paternoster’s prediction, that those with the most self-control are the least responsive to structural events. Doherty (2006) finds no evidence of an interaction between social bonds and social control. This latter result could be explained by Doherty’s use of a sample of serious juvenile delinquents rather than a more heterogeneous general population sample.
- 4.
4
This is not to say that biological processes play no role in explaining desistance from crime. For example, behavioral economists have suggested that one’s orientation to the future or discount rate can improve over time so that with age people become more patient and less tempted by immediate things (Mischel, Ayduk, & Mendoza-Denton, 2003). Since some of this improvement in resisting immediate temptation can be attributed to a maturing of the prefrontal cortex of the adolescent brain, a biological process is implicated (Albert & Steinberg, 2011).
- 5.
5
Along similar lines, Schlenker (1985:74) speaks of a “desired self.” A desired self is “what the person would like to be and thinks he or she can really be.” A desired self then emphasizes a positive identity that a person would like to have and is realistic to have.
- 6.
6
Implicated by this change in identity is a change in the quality of one’s decision making. Even with the same biological equipment a change in identity can lead one to make better use of his or her endowments to make better decisions.
- 7.
7
Giordano et al. (2002: 992) call these supports “hooks for change.”
- 8.
8
People who have no offenses are at hazard for a first criminal event, those who offend once are at a hazard for a second criminal event, etc.
References
Abbott, A. (2001). Time matters: On theory and method. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Agnew, R. (2005). Why do criminals offend? A general theory of crime and delinquency. Los Angeles: Roxbury Publishing.
Akerlof, G. A., & Kranton, R. E. (2010). Identity economics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Akers, R. L. (1998). Social learning and social structure: A general theory of crime and deviance. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
Albert, D., & Steinberg, L. (2011). Judgment and decision making in adolescence. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 21, 211–224.
Andrews, D. A., Bonta, J., & Wormith, J. S. (2006). The recent past and near future of risk and/or need assessment. Crime & Delinquency, 52, 7–27.
Apel, R., Bushway, S., Paternoster, R., Brame, R., & Sweeten, G. (2008). Using state child labor laws to identify the causal effect of youth employment on deviant behavior and academic achievement. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 24, 337–362.
Barnett, A., Blumstein, A., & Farrington, D. P. (1989). A prospective test of a criminal career model. Criminology, 27, 373–385.
Baskin, D., & Sommers, I. (1998). Casualties of community disorder: Women’s careers in violent crime. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Blokland, A., Nagin, D., & Nieuwbeerta, P. (2005). Life span offending trajectories of a Dutch conviction cohort. Criminology, 43, 919–954.
Blokland, A., & Nieuwbeerta, P. (2005). The effects of life circumstances on longitudinal trajectories of offending. Criminology, 43, 1203–1240.
Blumstein, A., & Cohen, J. (1987). Characterizing criminal careers. Science, 238, 985–991.
Blumstein, A., & Nakamura, K. (2009). Redemption in the presence of widespread criminal background checks. Criminology, 47, 327–359.
Brame, R., Bushway, S. D., & Paternoster, R. (2003). Examining the prevalence of criminal desistance. Criminology, 41, 423–448.
Burke, P. J. (1980). The self: measurement requirements from an interactionist perspective. Social Psychology Quarterly, 43, 18–29.
Burke, P. J., & Reitzes, D. C. (1981). The link between identity and role performance. Social Psychology Quarterly, 44, 83–92.
Burke, P. J., & Reitzes, D. C. (1991). An identity theory approach to commitment. Social Psychology Quarterly, 54, 239–251.
Bushway, S. (forthcoming). Chapter 10: Life course persisent offenders. In F. Cullen & P. Wilcox (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of criminological theory. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bushway, S., & Apel, R. (2012). A signaling perspective on employment-based reentry programming: Training completion as a desistance signal. Criminology and Public Policy, 11(1), 21–50.
Bushway, S. D., Nieuwbeerta, P., & Blokland, A. (2011). The predictive value of criminal background checks: Do age and criminal history affect time to redemption? Criminology, 49, 27–60.
Bushway, S., & Paternoster, R. (2012). Understanding desistance: Theory testing with formal empirical models. In J. MacDonald (Ed.), Measuring crime and criminality: Advances in criminological theory (Vol. 17, pp. 299–333). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
Bushway, S., Piquero, A., Broidy, L., Cauffman, E., & Mazerolle, P. (2001). An empirical framework for studying desistance as a process. Criminology, 39, 491–516.
Bushway, S., & Reuter, P. (2002). Labor markets and crime. In J. Q. Wilson & J. Petersilia (Eds.), Crime (pp. 191–224). Oakland: ICS Press.
Bushway, S. D., Sweeten, G., & Nieuwbeerta, P. (2009). Measuring long term individual trajectories of offending using multiple methods. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 25(3), 259–286.
Cooley, C. H. (1902). Human nature and the social order. New York: Scribners.
Doherty, E. E. (2006). Self-control, social bonds, and desistance: A test of life-course interdependence. Criminology, 44, 807–834.
Ebaugh, H. R. F. (1988). Becoming an ex: The process of role exit. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Eggleston, E. P., Laub, J. H., & Sampson, R. J. (2004). Methodological sensitivities to latent class analysis of long-term criminal trajectories. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 20, 1–26.
Elder, G. H. (1998). The life course as developmental theory. Child Development, 69, 1–12.
Fagan, J. (1989). Cessation of family violence: Deterrence and dissuasion. In L. Ohlin & M. Tonry (Eds.), Crime and justice: An annual review of research (Vol. 11, pp. 377–425). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Farrall, S. (2005). On the existential aspects of desistance from crime. Symbolic Interaction, 28, 367–386.
Farrall, S., & Maruna, S. (2004). Desistance-focused criminal justice policy research. Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 43, 358–367.
Farrington, D. P., Coid, J. W., Harnett, L., Jolliffe, D., Soteriou, N., & Turner, R. (2006). Criminal careers up to age 50 and life success up to age 48: New findings from the Cambridge Study in Delinquency Development. London: Home Office.
Foote, N. N. (1950). Identification as the basis for a theory of motivation. American Sociological Review, 16, 14–21.
Giordano, P. C., Cernkovich, S. A., & Rudolph, J. L. (2002). Gender, crime, and desistance: Toward a theory of cognitive transformation. The American Journal of Sociology, 107, 990–1064.
Giordano, P. C., Cernkovich, S. A., & Schroeder, R. D. (2007). Emotions and crime over the life course: A neo-Median perspective on criminal continuity and change. The American Journal of Sociology, 112, 1603–1661.
Glueck, S., & Glueck, E. (1974). Of delinquency and crime. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. New York: Simon and Schuester.
Gottfredson, M. R., & Hirschi, T. (1990). A general theory of crime. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Gottfredson, S. D., & Moriarty, L. J. (2006). Statistical risk assessment: Old problems and new applications. Crime and Delinquency, 52, 178–200.
Gove, W. R. (1985). The effect of age and gender on deviant behavior: A biopsychosocial perspective. In A. S. Rossi (Ed.), Gender and the life course (pp. 115–144). New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Hagan, J., & Palloni, A. (1988). Crimes as social events in the life course: Reconceiving a criminological controversy. Criminology, 26, 87–100.
Hansen, B. E. (2001). The new economics of structural change: Dating breaks in U.S. labor productivity. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 15, 117–128.
Hay, C., & Forrest, W. (2008). Self-control theory and the concept of opportunity: Making the case for a more systematic union. Criminology, 46, 1039–1072.
Horney, J. D., Osgood, W., & Marshall, I. H. (1995). Criminal careers in the short term: Intra-individual variability in crime and its relation to local life circumstances. American Sociological Review, 60, 655–673.
Hoyle, R. H., Kernis, M. H., Leary, M. R., & Baldwin, M. W. (1999). Selfhood: Identity, esteem and regulation. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Hoyle, R. H., & Sherrill, M. R. (2006). Future orientation in the self-system: Possible selves, self-regulation, and behavior. Journal of Personality, 74, 1673–1696.
James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology. New York: Henry Holt.
Kiecolt, K. J. (1994). Stress and the decision to change oneself: A theoretical model. Social Psychology Quarterly, 57, 49–63.
Kirk, D. S. (2012). Residential change as a turning point in the life course of crime: Desistance or temporary cessation? Criminology, 50, 329–358.
Kurlychek, M. C., Brame, R., & Bushway, S. D. (2006). Scarlet letters and recidivism: Does an old criminal record predict future offending? Criminology and Public Policy, 5, 483–504.
Kurlychek, M. C., Brame, R., & Bushway, S. D. (2007). Enduring risk? Old criminal records and predictions of future criminal involvement. Crime and Delinquency, 53, 64–83.
Kurlychek, M., Bushway, S., & Brame, R. (2012). Long-term crime desistance and recidivism patterns: Evidence from the Essex County Convicted Felon Study. Criminology, 50(1), 71–104.
Laub, J. H., & Edwin, H. (2006). Sutherland and the Michael-Adler report: Searching for the soul of criminology seventy years later. Criminology, 44(2), 235–257.
Laub, J. H., & Sampson, R. J. (2001). Understanding desistance from crime. In M. Tonry (Ed.), Crime and justice: A review of research (Vol. 28, pp. 1–69). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Laub, J. H., & Sampson, R. J. (2003). Shared beginnings, divergent lives: Delinquent boys to age 70. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Le Blanc, M., & Fréchette, M. (1989). Male criminal activity from childhood through youth. New York: Springer.
Maltz, M. D. (1984). Recidivism. New York: Academic.
Maltz, M. D., & McCleary, R. (1977). The mathematics of behavioral change. Evaluation Quarterly, 1, 421–438.
Markus, H. (1977). Self-schemata and processing information about the self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 63–78.
Markus, H. (1983). Self-knowledge: An expanded view. Journal of Personality, 51, 543–565.
Markus, H., & Kunda, Z. (1986). Stability and malleability of the self-concept. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 858–866.
Markus, H., & Nurius, P. (1986). Possible selves. American Psychologist, 41, 954–969.
Markus, H., & Nurius, P. (1987). Possible selves: The interface between motivation and the self-concept. In K. Yardley & T. Honess (Eds.), Self and identity: Psychological perspectives. New York: Wiley.
Markus, H., & Wurf, E. (1987). The dynamic self-concept: A social psychological perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 38, 299–337.
Maruna, S. (1999). Criminology, desistance, and the psychology of the stranger. In D. Cantor & L. Alison (Eds.), The sociology of crime: Groups, teams, and networks. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Maruna, S. (2001). Making good: How ex-convicts reform and build their lives. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association Books.
Maruna, S. (2004). Desistance and explanatory style: A new direction in the psychology of reform. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 20, 184–200.
Maruna, S., & Roy, K. (2007). Amputation or reconstruction? Notes on the concept of “knifing off” and desistance from crime. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 23, 104–124.
Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mischel, W., Ayduk, O., & Mendoza-Denton, R. (2003). Sustaining delay of gratification over time: A hot-cool systems perspective. In G. Loewenstein, D. Read, & R. Baumeister (Eds.), Time and decision: Economic and psychological perspectives on intemporal choice (pp. 175–200). New York: Russell Sage.
Moffitt, T. (1993). Adolesence-limited and life-course-persistent antisocial behavior: A developmental taxonomy. Psychological Review, 100, 674–701.
Moffitt, T. (2006). Life-course persistent versus adolescence-limited antisocial behavior. In D. Cicchetti & D. J. Cohen (Eds.), Developmental psychopathology, Vol. 3: Risk, disorder, and adaptation (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley.
Nagin, D. S. (2005). Group-based modeling of development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Nagin, D. S., & Land, K. C. (1993). Age, criminal careers, and population heterogeneity: Specification and estimation of a nonparametric mixed Poisson model. Criminology, 31, 327–362.
Nagin, D. S., & Paternoster, R. (1994). Personal capital and social control: The deterrence implications of a theory of individual differences in offending. Criminology, 32, 581–606.
Osgood, W. (2005). Making sense of crime and the life course. The Annals, 602, 196–211.
Ousey, G. C., & Wilcox, P. (2007). Interactions between antisocial propensity and life-course varying correlates of delinquent behavior: Differences by method of estimation and implications for theory. Criminology, 45, 401–442.
Oyserman, D., Bybee, D., Terry, K., & Hart-Johnson, T. (2004). Possible selves as roadmaps. Journal of Research in Personality, 38, 130–149.
Paternoster, R., & Bushway, S. (2009). Desistance and the “feared self”: Toward an identity theory of criminal desistance. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 99, 1103–1155.
Piquero, A. R. (2008). Taking stock of developmental trajectories of criminal activity over the life-course. In A. Lieberman (Ed.), The long view of crime: A synthesis of longitudinal research (pp. 23–78). New York: Springer.
Rhodes, W. (2011). Predicting criminal recidivism: A research note. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 7, 57–71.
Sampson, R. J., & Laub, J. H. (1993). Crime in the making: Pathways and turning points through life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Sampson, R. J., & Laub, J. H. (2003). Life-course desisters? Trajectories of crime among delinquent boys followed to age 70. Criminology, 41, 301–339.
Sampson, R. J., & Laub, J. H. (2005). Seductions of method: Rejoinder to Nagin and Tremblay. Criminology, 43, 905–914.
Sampson, R. J., Laub, J. H., & Wimer, C. (2006). Does marriage reduce crime? A counter-factual approach to within-individual causal effects. Criminology, 44, 465–508.
Schlenker, B. R. (1985). Identity and self-identification. In B. R. Schlenker (Ed.), The self and social life (pp. 65–100). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Schmidt, P., & Witte, A. D. (1988). Predicting recidivism using survival models. New York: Springer.
Shover, N. (1996). Great pretenders: Pursuits and careers of persistent thieves. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Skardhamar, T. (2009). Reconsidering the theory of adolescent-limited and life-course persistent anti-social behaviour. British Journal of Criminology, 49, 863–878.
Soothill, K., & Francis, B. (2009). When do ex-offenders become like non-offenders? Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 48, 373–387.
Stryker, S. (1968). Identity salience and role performance: The relevance of symbolic interaction theory for family research. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 4, 558–564.
Stryker, S. (1980). Symbolic interactionism: A social structural version. Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin Cummings.
Stryker, S., & Burke, P. J. (2000). The past, present, and future of an identity theory. Social Psychology Quarterly, 63, 284–297.
Thornberry, T. P. (1987). Toward an interactional theory of delinquency. Criminology, 25, 863–891.
Thornberry, T. P., Bushway, S. D., Lizotte, A. J., & Krohn, M. D. (2008). Accounting for behavioral change. (working paper).
Uggen, C. (2000). Work as a turning point in the life course of criminals: A duration model of age, employment, and recidivism. American Sociological Review, 65, 529–546.
Wilmoth, J. R., & Horiuchi, S. (1999). Rectangularization revisited: Variability of age at death within human populations. Demography, 36, 475–495.
Wright, B. R. E., Caspi, A., Moffitt, T. E., & Paternoster, R. (2004). Does the perceived risk of punishment deter criminally-prone individuals? Rational choice, self-control, and crime. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 41(2), 180–213.
Wright, B. R. E., Caspi, A., Moffitt, T. E., & Silva, P. (2001). The effects of social ties on crime vary by criminal propensity: A life-course model of interdependence. Criminology, 39(2), 321–348.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bushway, S.D., Paternoster, R. (2013). Desistance from Crime: A Review and Ideas for Moving Forward. In: Gibson, C., Krohn, M. (eds) Handbook of Life-Course Criminology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5113-6_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5113-6_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-5112-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-5113-6
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)