Abstract:
Many scholars examining desistance from crime have emphasized the importance
of social factors in triggering the desistance process. Most notably, the work of Sampson
and Laub (1993) focuses on the role of social bonds (e.g., marriage and employment),
which serve as turning points in offenders’ lives, while other scholars have emphasized
other important social factors, such as antisocial peer influence (Stouthamer-Loeber, Wei,
Loeber, Masten, 2004; Warr, 1998, 2002). However, missing from such works is the role
of subjective factors (e.g., thinking patterns, expectations, self-identity) in the desistance
process, despite evidence that changes in identity and other cognitive transformations
promote desistance from criminal offending (Giordano, Cernkovich, & Rudolph, 2002;
Maruna, 2001). Examining the combined role of subjective and social factors is important,
because it may lead to a more comprehensive understanding of the desistance process.
Desistance researchers typically focus on one set of factors, while downplaying the other
set of factors. Rarely have researchers examined the effects of social and subjective
factors simultaneously (for exceptions, see Healy, 2010; Laub & Sampson, 2003; Morizot & Le Blanc, 2007). And even fewer attempts have been made to examine the interplay
between social and subjective factors (for exceptions, see LeBel, Burnett, Maruna, &
Bushway, 2008; Simons & Barr, 2012). Further, there is a special need to examine the
impact of change in subjective and social factors on the desistance process using withinindividual
analyses (Farrington, 2007; Horney, Osgood, & Marshall, 1995; Kazemian,
2007).
Thus, research on desistance is advanced in the current study in the following
three ways. First, the influence of both subjective and social factors on desistance are
considered, within the same statistical model. Second, this study is based on withinindividual
analyses. Third, the interplay between subjective and social factors is explored
in this study, including mediation and moderation (interaction) effects. Data used in the
current study are drawn from the Pathways to Desistance study (see Mulvey, 2004),
following serious adolescent offenders for seven years – from mid-adolescence through
early adulthood. The theoretical, policy, and research implications of the findings are
discussed.
Desistance