Gender, Crime, and Desistance: Toward a Theory of Cognitive Transformation

Abstract

We analyze quantitative and qualitative data derived from the first contemporary long-term follow-up of a sample of serious adolescent female offenders and a sample of similarly situated males. Our objective was to determine whether factors associated with women’s desistance from crime were similar to those emphasized in prior work on male offenders. Regression analyses revealed that such factors as marital attachment and job stability were not systematically related to either male or female desistance (defined by self-reports of criminal activity or the absence of recent arrests). We outlined a symbolic interactionist perspective on desistance as a counterpoint to Sampson and Laub’s (Crime in the making: Pathways and turning points through life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993) theory of informal social control and used data from life history narratives to illustrate elements of this perspective. This provisional theory of “cognitive transformation” is compatible in most respects with a control approach, but (a) adds specificity regarding mechanisms underlying change, (b) explains some of control theory’s negative cases, and (c) seems to have a particularly good fit with the life course challenges facing contemporary serious female (and more provisionally) male offenders.

In a series of recent analyses, Sampson and Laub highlighted the importance of marital attachment and job stability as key factors associated with desistance from crime (Sampson and Laub 1993). While the delinquents they studied were more likely than others to continue to offend as adults, there was considerable variability in the success of their adult transitions and in the timing of movement away from a criminal lifestyle. Sampson and Laub develop a social control explanation that emphasized the gradual buildup of investments that tend to accrue in the presence of strong bonds of attachment (“the good marriage effect”) and steady employment. This focus on variability and on the impact of adult social bonds also adds to the broader intellectual tradition that emphasizes the ways in which socialization and development continue across the full range of the individual life course.

A potential limitation of this important body of work is that the sample on which the analyses were based was composed entirely of white male offenders who matured into adulthood during the 1950s. Thus it is not clear whether the findings described (or the theory that derives from them) effectively capture the experiences of female or minority delinquents or, more generally, offenders coming of age within the context of a more contemporary social and economic landscape. We contribute to the literature on desistance processes by presenting results of the first detailed long-term follow-up of a cohort of serious female offenders and a comparable sample of males. We rely on quantitative data to determine whether factors such as marital attachment and/or job stability are associated with female as well as male desistance from criminal activity and also analyze in-depth interview material that provides a window on mechanisms through which individuals make significant life changes. The latter interviews in particular were useful in developing a theory centering on the cognitive shifts that frequently occur as an integral part of the desistance process. We contrast this “theory of cognitive transformation” with the social control framework Sampson and Laub and other scholars have emphasized. Social control theory emphasizes the ways in which a close marital bond or stable job gradually exerts a constraining influence on behavior as—over a period of time—actors build up higher levels of commitment (capital) through the traditional institutions of family and work.

This perspective is important but not comprehensive, as it tends to bracket off the “up-front” work accomplished by actors themselves—as they make initial moves toward, help to craft, and work to sustain a different way of life. We emphasize the individual’s own role in creatively appropriating elements in the environment (we will refer to these elements as “hooks for change”), including but not limited to such positive influences as a spouse. We argue further that these will tend to serve well as catalysts for lasting change when they energize fundamental shifts in identity and changes in the meaning and desirability of deviant/criminal behavior itself. The latter idea contrasts with a basic assumption of control theory, namely that an individual’s motivation to deviate does not fundamentally change, but rather it is the degree of external and internal control that varies considerably.

The focus on cognitions is potentially useful as (1) it suggests the need to focus directly on the important period when actors make initial attempts to veer off a deviant pathway (when, almost by definition, various forms of social capital have not had much chance to accumulate); (2) it accommodates the observation that quite a few individuals exposed to prosocial experiences like those associated with marriage or job opportunities fail to take advantage of them (they persist in offending anyway); and (3) the focus on cognitive changes rather than a small set of predictors provides a measure of conceptual flexibility. That is, it allows for the situation in which individuals manage to put together changes in life direction even in the absence of traditional frameworks of support/resources like those a spouse or good job provide.

We developed our ideas about the importance of cognitive processes and the role of “agentic moves” primarily through our analyses of one set of contemporary quantitative and qualitative data and were particularly focused on women’s efforts to change. Perhaps for individuals, samples, or eras characterized by greater advantage, the kinds of cognitive processes we will emphasize may not have been necessary (when things really do just tend to fall into place). In contrast, our respondents’ frequent descriptions of efforts to, in effect, pull themselves up by their own “cognitive bootstraps” likely connect to the reality that society has provided them with little in the way of raw materials (i.e., social and economic advantages).

This research was supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health [MH29095 & MH46410]. The original version of this article was coauthored with Stephen A. Cernkovich and Jennifer L. Rudolph.