Desistance and the "feared self": Toward an identity theory of criminal desistance

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Volumn 99, Issue 4, 2009, Pages 1103-1156

  Paternoster, Ray ^a   Bushway, Shawn ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND   (United States)

^b STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 77950375993     PISSN: 00914169     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (289)

1. Robert Agnew, WHY DO CRIMINALS OFFEND? A GENERAL THEORY OF CRIME AND DELINQUENCY (2005)
2. Ronald L. Akers, SOCIAL LEARNING AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE: A GENERAL THEORY OF CRIME AND DEVIANCE (1998).
3. John H. Laub & Robert J. Sampson, Shared Beginnings, DIVERGENT LIVES: DELINQUENT BOYS TO AGE 70 (2003)
4. SHADD MARUNA, MAKING GOOD: HOW EX-CONVICTS REFORM AND BUILD THEIR LIVES (2001)
5. Stephen Farrall, On the Existential Aspects of Desistance from Crime, 28 SYMBOLIC INTERACTION 367 (2005)
6. Peggy C. Giordano, Stephen A. Cernkovich & Jennifer L. Rudolph, Gender, Crime, and Desistance: Toward a Theory of Cognitive Transformation, 107 AM. J. SOC. 990 (2002) [hereinafter Giordano et al., Gender, Crime, and Desistance]
7. Peggy C. Giordano, Stephen A. Cernkovich & Ryan D. Schroeder, Emotions and Crime Over the Life Course: A Neo-Median Perspective on Criminal Continuity and Change, 112 AM. J. SOC. 1603 (2007) [hereinafter Giordano et al., Emotions and Crime]. This does not, of course, mean that desistance from crime was neither noticed nor explained prior to the advent of the criminal career debate. Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck, for example, may have been the first to empirically document the general decline in criminal conduct over the life course.
8. See SHELDON & ELEANOR GLUECK, OF DELINQUENCY AND CRIME (1974)
9. SHELDON & ELEANOR GLUECK, DELINQUENTS AND NONDELINQUENTS IN PERSPECTIVE (1968)
10. SHELDON & ELEANOR GLUECK, UNRAVELING JUVENILE DELINQUENCY (1950); SHELDON & ELEANOR GLUECK, CRIMINAL CAREERS IN RETROSPECT (1943). While not developing a "theory" as to why desistance occurred, the Gluecks did suggest it was due to a process of gradual maturation. Similarly, David Matza observed that over time most delinquents "mature out" of offending.
11. DAVID MATZA, DELINQUENCY AND DRIFT (1964). Finally, Travis Hirschi used the decline in offending beginning in late adolescence as a vehicle to criticize strain and cultural deviance theories of crime as well as to promote his own social control theory, which he thought could adequately account for desistance.
12. Travis Hirschi, CAUSES OF DELINQUENCY (1969).
13. MARUNA, supra note; NEAL SHOVER, GREAT PRETENDERS: PURSUITS AND CAREERS OF PERSISTENT THIEVES (1996)
14. Farrall, supra note; Giordano et al., Gender, Crime, and Desistance, supra note.
15. Hazel Markus & Paula Nurius, Possible Selves: The Interface Between Motivation and the Self-Concept, in SELF AND IDENTITY: PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES 157, 157-72 (K. Yardley & T. Honess eds., 1987) [hereinafter Markus & Nurius, Interface]
16. Hazel Markus & Paula Nurius, Possible Selves, 41 AM. PSYCHOLOGIST 954 (1986) [hereinafter Markus & Nurius, Possible Selves].
17. Margaret S. Archer, MAKING OUR WAY THROUGH THE WORLD: HUMAN REFLEXIVITY AND SOCIAL MOBILITY (2007) [hereinafter ARCHER, MAKING OUR WAY]
18. Margaret S. Archer, BEING HUMAN: THE PROBLEM OF AGENCY (2000) [hereinafter ARCHER, BEING HUMAN]
19. K. Jill Kiecolt & J. Beth Mabry, Agency in Young Adulthood: Intentional Self-Change Among College Students, 5 Advances in Life Course Res. 181 (2000).
20. Farrall, supra note; Giordano et al., Gender, Crime, and Desistance, supra note; MARUNA, supra note
21. Stephen Farrall & Shadd Maruna, Desistance-Focused Criminal Justice Policy Research, 43 HOW. J. CRIM. JUST. 358 (2004)
22. Shadd Maruna, Desistance from Crime and Explanatory Style: A New Direction in the Psychology of Reform, 20 J. CONTEMP. CRIM. JUST. 184 (2004)
23. Shadd Maruna & Kevin Roy, Amputation or Reconstruction? Notes on the Concept of "Knifing Off" and Desistance from Crime, 23 J. CONTEMP. CRIM. JUST. 104 (2007).
24. Giordano et al., Emotions and Crime, supra note, at 1608-16.
25. Giordano et al., Emotions and Crime, supra note, at 1607.
26. We are not implying that identity forms without social interaction, for the shift toward a new identity is a social product, as persons "try out" their new role on others. Here we are arguing that whole-scale shifts in social networks and some opportunities for new social roles, such as marriage partner or employee, must be based at least in part on new identities that are both projected by self and at least tentatively validated or accepted by others. We will argue in a later section of this paper, infra Part V, that it is important for the success of the change process that others support the new self or at the very least not actively oppose it.
27. Giordano et al., Gender, Crime, and Desistance, supra note; Giordano et al., Emotions and Crime, supra note.
28. Erving Goffman, STIGMA: NOTES ON THE MANAGEMENT OF SPOILED IDENTITY 41-104 (1963).
29. Giordano et al., Emotions and Crime, supra note.
30. Giordano et al., Gender, Crime and Desistance, supra note.
31. Farrall, supra note, at 368-69.
32. MARUNA, supra note, at 17.
33. Kiecolt & Maybry, supra note.
34. MARUNA, supra note, at 88-92.
35. MARUNA, supra note, at 154.
36. MARUNA, supra note, at 9.
37. Although we will be discussing the role of identity and desistance from crime generally, it will be obvious to most that notions of identity and crime are pervasive in the criminal justice system. For example, in determining what kind of punishment and how much to punish, judges certainly consider what kind of person they assume the convicted to be: remorseful and heading in the "right direction" or unrepentant and likely to offend again. To the extent that correctional programs still try to engage in rehabilitation, they attempt to change the identity of the inmate with the expectation that such a change will lead to conformity or desistance upon release. There is in fact a vast literature on the use of rehabilitation to reduce offending by changing offenders' identities that the interested reader may seek out; however, that topic is beyond the scope of this Article.
38. Robert J. Sampson & John H. Laub, CRIME IN THE MAKING: PATHWAYS AND TURNING POINTS THROUGH LIFE (1993)
39. Robert J. Sampson & John H. Laub, Life-Course Desisters? Trajectories of Crime Among Delinquent Boys Followed to Age 70, 41 CRIMINOLOGY 555 (2003).
40. SAMPSON & LAUB, supra note, at 278-79
41. Sampson & Laub, supra note.
42. Giordano et al., Gender, Crime and Desistance, supra note, at 1033-36.
43. Gottfredson and Hirschi describe this phenomenon as a change in both criminality and crime. Michael R. Gottfredson & Travis Hirschi, A GENERAL THEORY OF CRIME (1990).
44. Jeffrey Fagan, Cessation of Family Violence: Deterrence and Dissuasion, in 11 CRIME AND JUSTICE: AN ANNUAL REVIEW OF RESEARCH 377 (Lloyd Ohlin & Michael Tonry eds., 1989).
45. Marc Leblanc & Marcel Fréchette, MALE CRIMINAL ACTIVITY FROM CHILDHOOD THROUGH YOUTH: MULTILEVEL AND DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVES (1989).
46. John H. Laub & Robert J. Sampson, Understanding Desistance from Crime, in 28 CRIME AND JUSTICE: A REVIEW OF RESEARCH 1 (Michael H. Tonry ed., 2001).
47. Shawn Bushway et al., An Empirical Framework for Studying Desistance as a Process, 39 CRIMINOLOGY 491 (2001).
48. Daniel S. Nagin & Kenneth C. Land, Age, Criminal Careers, and Population Heterogeneity: Specification and Estimation of a Nonparametric Mixed Poisson Model, 31 CRIMINOLOGY 327 (1993).
49. Shawn D. Bushway, Terence P. Thornberry & Marvin D. Krohn, Desistance as a Developmental Process: A comparison of Static and Dynamic Approaches, 19 J. QUANTITATIVE CRIMINOLOGY 129 (2003).
50. Arjan A. J. Blokland, Daniel Nagin & Paul Nieuwbeerta, Life Span Offending Trajectories of a Dutch Conviction Cohort, 43 CRIMINOLOGY 919 (2005)
51. Alex R. Piquero, Taking Stock of Developmental Trajectories of Criminal Activity over the Life Course, in THE LONG VIEW OF CRIME: A SYNTHESIS OF LONGITUDINAL RESEARCH 23 (Akiva M. Liberman ed., 2008)
52. Sampson & Laub, supra note
53. Arjan A. J. Blokland & Paul Nieuwbeerta, The Effects of Life Circumstances on Longitudinal Trajectories of Offending, 43 CRIMINOLOGY 1203 (2005) (using this method to describe the latent propensity to offend over the entire life course, roughly age twelve to age seventy).
54. Blokland et al., supra note, at 932-33
55. Bushway et al., supra note, at 141-45.
56. David P. Farrington et al., Criminal Careers Up to Age 50 and Life Success Up to Age 48: New Findings from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (Home Off., Development & Statistics Directorate Res. Study No. 299, 2d ed. 2006), available at http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs06/hors299.pdf.
57. Richard Mccleary & Richard A. Hay, Jr., APPLIED TIME SERIES ANALYSIS FOR THE SOCIAL SCIENCES (1980).
58. We will also argue that support for the theory can also be developed by a more traditional research strategy, such as conducting intensive interviews with samples of committed criminal offenders some of whom are going through, or have gone through, the desistance process. Information obtained from such offenders would include data about the process described in this paper: change in identity, crystallization of discontent, and changes in social and institutional relationships.
59. Charles H. Cooley, HUMAN NATURE AND THE SOCIAL ORDER (1902)
60. William James, THE PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY (1890)
61. George H. Mead, MIND, SELF, AND SOCIETY FROM THE STANDPOINT OF A SOCIAL BEHAVIORIST (1934)
62. Sheldon Stryker, SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM: A SOCIAL STRUCTURAL VERSION (1980)
63. Sheldon Stryker, Identity Salience and Role Performance: The Relevance of Symbolic Interaction Theory for Family Research, 4 J. MARRIAGE & FAM. 558 (1968).
64. Peter J. Burke, The Self: Measurement Requirements from an Interactionist Perspective, 43 SOC. PSYCHOL. Q. 18 (1980)
65. Peter J. Burke & Donald C. Reitzes, The Link Between Identity and Role Performance, 44 SOC. PSYCHOL. Q. 83 (1981)
66. Nelson N. Foote, Identification as the Basis for a Theory of Motivation, 16 AM. SOC. REV. 14 (1951); Stryker, supra note.
67. It is in this sense that Stryker claimed that "[a]ctors within this social structure name themselves as well-it is to these reflexively applied positional designations that the concept of self is typically intended to refer-and in so doing they create internalized expectations with respect to their own behavior. " Stryker, supra note, at 559.
68. Peter J. Burke & Donald C. Reitzes, An Identity Theory Approach to Commitment, 54 SOC. PSYCHOL. Q. 239, 240 (1991).
69. ARCHER, BEING HUMAN, supra note
70. ARCHER, MAKING OUR WAY, supra note
71. Alicia D. Cast, Identities and Behavior, in ADVANCES IN IDENTITY THEORY AND RESEARCH 41 (Peter J. Burke et al. eds., 2003)
72. Burke & Reitzes, supra note
73. Burke & Reitzes, supra note
74. Stryker, supra note
75. Sheldon Stryker & Peter J. Burke, The Past, Present, and Future of an Identity Theory, 63 SOC. PSYCHOL. Q. 284 (2000).
76. Hazel Markus, Self-Knowledge: An Expanded View, 51 J. PERSONALITY 543 (1983)
77. Hazel Markus & Elissa Wurf, The Dynamic Self-Concept: A Social Psychological Perspective, 38 ANN. REV. PSYCHOL. 299 (1987).
78. Markus, supra note
79. Markus & Wurf, supra note.
80. Hazel Markus & Ziva Kunda, Stability and Malleability of the Self-Concept, 51 J. PERSONALITY & SOC. PSYCHOL 858 (1986)
81. Markus & Wurf, supra note.
82. E. Tory Higgins, Gillian A. King & Gregory H. Mavin, Individual Construct Accessibility and Subjective Impressions and Recall, 43 J. PERSONALITY & SOC. PSYCHOL. 35-38 (1982).
83. Hazel Markus, Self-Schemata and Processing Information About the Self, 35 J. PERSONALITY & SOC. PSYCHOL. 63 (1977).
84. Markus & Nurius, Interface, supra note; Markus & Nurius, Possible Selves, supra note. Along similar lines, Schlenker speaks of a "desired self. " A desired self is "what the person would like to be and thinks he or she can really be. " Barry R. Schlenker, Identity and Self-Identification, in THE SELF AND SOCIAL LIFE 65, 74 (Barry R. Schlenker ed., 1985). A desired self, then, emphasizes a positive identity that a person would like to have and is realistic to have.
85. Markus & Nurius, Interface, supra note, at 157.
86. ARCHER, BEING HUMAN, supra note
87. Mustafa Emirbayer & Jeff Goodwin, Network Analysis, Culture, and the Problem of Agency, 99 AM. J. SOC. 1411 (1994)
88. Mustafa Emirbayer & Ann Mische, What Is Agency?, 103 AM. J. SOC. 962 (1998).
89. Rick H. Hoyle et al., SELFHOOD: IDENTITY, ESTEEM AND REGULATION (John Harvey ed., 1999)
90. Laura A. King, The Health Benefits of Writing About Life Goals, 27 PERSONALITY & SOC. PSYCHOL. BULL. 798-800 (2001).
91. King, supra note, at 798-99; see also Marti Hope Gonzales et al., The Allure of Bad Plans: Implications of Plan Quality for Progress Toward Possible Selves and Post-Planning Energization, 23 BASIC & APPLIED SOC. PSYCHOL. 87 (2001).
92. Markus & Nurius, Possible Selves, supra note, at 955; Markus & Nurius, Interface, supra note, at 159-60.
93. Rick H. Hoyle & Michelle R. Sherrill, Future Orientation in the Self-System: Possible Selves, Self-Regulation, and Behavior, 74 J. PERSONALITY 1673, 1675-76 (2006)
94. Daphna Oyserman et al., Possible Selves as Roadmaps, 38 J. RES. PERSONALITY 130, 132 (2004).
95. Oyserman et al., supra note.
96. Markus & Nurius, supra note, at 159.
97. Giordano et al., Gender, Crime and Desistance, supra note.
98. Giordano et al., Gender, Crime and Desistance, supra note at 1026.
99. MARUNA, supra note, at 95-99
100. Ros Burnett & Shadd Maruna, So 'Prison Works' Does It?: The Criminal Careers of 130 Men Released from Prison Under Home Secretary, Michael Howard, 43 HOW. J. CRIM. JUST. 394-99 (2004).
101. Norman K. Denzin, THE RECOVERING ALCOHOLIC 158 (1987).
102. PATRICK BIERNACKI, PATHWAYS FROM HEROIN ADDICTION: RECOVERY WITHOUT TREATMENT 72 (Sheryl Ruzek & Irving Kenneth Zola eds., 1986) (emphasis added).
103. Deborah R. Baskin & Ira B Sommers, CASUALTIES OF COMMUNITY DISORDER: WOMEN'S CAREERS IN VIOLENT CRIME 129-31 (John Hagan ed., 1998).
104. Id. at 129. We would like to make it absolutely clear that our use of others' qualitative data is strictly limited to the purpose of illustrating a point about the theory, and that such qualitative data is silent with respect to the validity of the theory. None of the qualitative data we use provides evidence or support for the theory. The validation of our theoretical argument awaits independent empirical research-two frameworks for which we suggest later in the paper.
105. BIERNACKI, supra note, at 53.
106. BASKIN & SOMMERS, supra note, at 130.
107. John Hagan & Bill McCarthy, MEAN STREETS: YOUTH CRIME AND HOMELESSNESS (Alfred Blumstein & David Farrington eds., 1997)
108. John Hagan, The Social Embeddedness of Crime and Unemployment, 31 CRIMINOLOGY 465 (1993)
109. John Hagan, Destiny and Drift: Subcultural Preferences, Status Attainments, and the Risks and Rewards of Youth, 56 AM. SOC. REV. 567 (1991).
110. Maryann Amodeo et al., Abstinence, Reasons for Not Drinking, and Life Satisfaction, 27 INT'L J. ADDICTIONS 707, 708-09 (1992)
111. MARUNA, supra note
112. Helen Matzger et al., Reasons for Drinking Less and Their Relationship to Sustained Remission from Problem Drinking, 100 ADDICTION 1637 (2005)
113. George E. Valliant & Eva S. Milofsky, The Etiology of Alcoholism: A Prospective Viewpoint, 37 AM. PSYCHOLOGIST 494 (1982)
114. Connie Weisner, The Role of Alcohol-Related Problematic Events in Treatment Entry, 26 DRUG & ALCOHOL DEPENDENCE 93 (1990)
115. William F. White & Thomas. L. Porter, Self Concept Reports Among Hospitalized Alcoholics During Early Periods of Sobriety, 13 J. COUNSELING PSYCHOL. 352 (1966).
116. This theme was also developed in MARUNA, supra note, at 27.
117. Hoyle & Sherrill, supra note, at 1677-78
118. Daphna Oyserman & Hazel Rose Markus, Possible Selves and Delinquency, 59 J. PERSONALITY & SOC. PSYCHOL. 112, 113 (1990).
119. Oyserman & Markus, supra note, at 117.
120. Oyserman & Markus, supra note, at 114.
121. Norman K. Denzin, INTERPRETIVE INTERACTIONISM 74-75 (Leonard Bickman & Debra Rog eds., 1989).
122. In this regard, we agree with Bottoms et al. 's assessment of desistance: "Damascene conversions may happen for a few, but we suspect that, for many people, the progression is faltering, hesitant and oscillating. " Anthony Bottoms et al., Towards Desistance: Theoretical Underpinnings for an Empirical Study, 43 HOW J. CRIM. JUST. 368, 383 (2004).
123. Burke & Reitzes, supra note, at 244.
124. Steven D. Levitt & Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh, An Economic Analysis of a Drug-Selling Gang's Finances, 115 Q. J. ECON. 755, 757-58 (2000) [hereinafter Levitt & Venkatesh, Economic Analysis]
125. Jared Bernstein & Ellen Houston, CRIME AND WORK: WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM THE LOW-WAGE LABOR MARKET (2000)
126. HAGAN & MCCARTHY, supra note
127. Felix M. Padilla, THE GANG AS AN AMERICAN ENTERPRISE (1992)
128. Mercer L. Sullivan, "GETTING PAID": YOUTH CRIME AND WORK IN THE INNER CITY (Roger Sanjec ed., 1990)
129. Steven D. Levitt & Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh, Growing Up in the Projects: The Economic Lives of a Cohort of Men Who Came of Age in Chicago Public Housing, 91 AM. ECON. REV. 79 (2001) [hereinafter Levitt & Venkatesh, Growing Up in the Projects].
130. GOTTFREDSON & HIRSCHI, supra note, at 18-21.
131. Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Bubner, FREAKONOMICS: A ROGUE ECONOMIST EXPLORES THE HIDDEN SIDE OF EVERYTHING (1st ed. 2005)
132. ABOUT CRIMINALS: A VIEW OF THE OFFENDERS' WORLD (Mark Pogrebin ed., 2004)
133. Darrell J. Steffensmeier, THE FENCE: IN THE SHADOW OF TWO WORLDS (1986).
134. Nancy Wolff, Jing Shi & Jane A. Siegel, Patterns of Victimization Among Male and Female Inmates: Evidence of an Enduring Legacy, in 24 VIOLENCE & VICTIMS 469, 469-84 (2009).
135. Thomas Hobbes, LEVIATHAN 100 (Touchstone 1997) (1651).
136. BERNSTEIN & HOUSTON, supra note
137. SULLIVAN, supra note
138. Sudhir Venkatesh, Gang Leader FOR A DAY (2008)
139. Sudhir Venkatesh, OFF THE BOOKS: THE UNDERGROUND ECONOMY OF THE URBAN POOR (2006)
140. Levitt & Venkatesh, supra note. 85 JACK KATZ, SEDUCTIONS OF CRIME 52-79 (1988).
141. Anthony Gary Dworkin, TEACHER BURNOUT IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS: STRUCTURAL CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES FOR CHILDREN (Daniel Duke ed., 1986)
142. Seymour B. Sarason, WORK, AGING, AND SOCIAL CHANGE: PROFESSIONALS AND THE ONE LIFE-ONE CAREER IMPERATIVE (1977).
143. KATZ, supra note, at 65-66, 299-300.
144. SHOVER, supra note, at 93-109.
145. DWORKIN, supra note, at 21-34.
146. This is consistent with Neal Shover and Carol Thompson, who found that the probability of desistance increases when offenders' expectations for achieving rewards through criminal activity declines. Neal Shover & Carol Y. Thompson, Age, Differential Expectations, and Crime Desistance, 30 CRIMINOLOGY 89 (1992).
147. Similarly, Sommers et al. speak about "socially disjunctive experiences" as catalysts for decisions to quit offending. Ira Sommers, Deborah R. Baskin & Jeffrey Fagan, Getting out of the Life: Crime Desistance by Female Street Offenders, 15 DEVIANT BEHAV. 125 (1994). Lee Robins noted that for the offenders she studied "the most frequent explanation offered for desistance was that "I just wasn't up to that kind of hassle anymore." Lee N. Robins, Explaining When Arrests End for Serious Juvenile Offenders: Comments on the Sampson and Laub Study", 602 ANNALS AM. ACAD. POL. & SOC. SCI. 61 (2005).
148. K. Jill Kiecolt, Stress and the Decision to Change Oneself: A Theoretical Model, 57 SOC. PSYCHOL. Q. 49-51 (1994).
149. Roy F. Baumeister, MEANINGS OF LIFE 303-06 (1991); Roy F. Baumeister, The Crystallization of Discontent, in CAN PERSONALITY CHANGE? 281, 281-82 (Todd F. Heatherton & Joel L. Weinberger eds., 1994).
150. Baumeister, supra note, at 281-82.
151. BAUMEISTER, supra note, at 306.
152. BIERNACKI, supra note, at 54.
153. HELEN ROSE FUCHS EBAUGH, BECOMING AN EX: THE PROCESS OF ROLE EXIT 128 (1988).
154. HELEN ROSE FUCHS EBAUGH, BECOMING AN EX: THE PROCESS OF ROLE EXIT 125-28 (1988).
155. MIKE MAGUIRE & TREVOR BENNETT, BURGLARY IN A DWELLING 89 (1982).
156. Shover, supra note, at 132.
157. Maruna, supra note, at 85-108.
158. See generally Giordano et al., Gender, Crime, and Desistance, supra note; Giordano et al., Emotions and Crime, supra note
159. Sarah Lichtenstein & Paul Slovic, THE CONSTRUCTION OF PREFERENCE 1-40 (2006).
160. Giordano et al., Gender, Crime, and Desistance, supra note, at 992.
161. Giordano et al., Emotions and Crime, supra note, at 1625.
162. Peggy C. Giordano et al., Changes in Friendship Relations Over the Life Course: Implications for Desistance from Crime, 41 CRIMINOLOGY 293-308 (2003).
163. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, Economics and Identity, 115 Q. J. ECON. 715 (2000)
164. Shane Frederick, Time Preference and Personal Identity, in TIME AND DECISION: ECONOMIC AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON INTERTEMPORAL CHOICE 89 (George Loewenstein, Daniel Read & Roy F. Baumeister eds., 2003)
165. George Loewenstein & Erik Angner, Predicting and Indulging Changing Preferences, in TIME AND DECISION, supra, at 351
166. Akerlof and Kranton provide as an example the giving of charitable contributions. Akerlof & Kranton, supra note. Most people do not give to these charitable organizations, which, with the highest marginal rate of return, would maximize the economic impact of the gift. Rather, most give to organizations that reflect their identity-"green" organizations, peace organizations, organizations for A.I.D.S. patients, the homeless, the Republican Party, or their alma mater. Id.
167. Amodeo et al., supra note, at 709.
168. SHOVER, supra note, at 134.
169. MONICA BARRY, YOUTH OFFENDING IN TRANSITION: THE SEARCH FOR SOCIAL RECOGNITION 106 (2006).
170. See SHOVER, supra note; David M. Bishai, Does Time Preference Change with Age?, 17 J. POPULATION ECON. 583 (2004); Maurice Cusson & Pierre Pinsonneault, The Decision to Give up Crime, in THE REASONING CRIMINAL 72 (Derek B. Cornish & Ronald V. Clarke eds., 1986); Leonard Green, Astrid F. Fry & Joel Myerson, Discounting of Delayed Rewards: A Life-Span Comparison, 5 PSYCHOL. SCI. 33 (1994); Daniel Read & N. L. Read, Time Discounting Over the Life Span, 94 ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAV. & HUM. DECISION PROCESSES 22 (2004); Neal Shover, The Later Stages of Ordinary Property Offender Careers, 31 SOC. PROBS. 208 (1983).
171. See Frederick, supra note; Loewenstein & Angner, supra note; George Loewenstein et al., Introduction to TIME AND DECISION, supra note, at 1. Descriptive of this is the conclusion by Loewenstein, Read, and Baumeister that "[t]he ability to wait is not only correlated with brain activity, but also with age and dispositional person variables. . . Independent of maturation level, stable individual differences also exist in the ability to access cool-system strategies in dealing with the frustration of the delay situation." Id. at 5 (emphasis added).
172. Yuichi Shoda et al., Predicting Adolescent Cognitive and Self-Regulatory Competencies from Preschool Delay of Gratification: Identifying Diagnostic Conditions, 26 DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOL. 982-983 (1990).
173. Yuichi Shoda et al., Predicting Adolescent Cognitive and Self-Regulatory Competencies from Preschool Delay of Gratification: Identifying Diagnostic Conditions, 26 DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOL. at 978-979.
174. Giordano et al., Emotions and Crime, supra note, at 1606-16.
175. Kiecolt, supra note, at 56. Giordano, Cernkovich, and Rudolph call these supports "hooks for change." Giordano et al., Gender, Crime, and Desistance, supra note, at 992.
176. Kiecolt, supra note, at 56.
177. Giordano et al., Emotions and Crime, supra note, at 1643-46.
178. Giordano et al., Changes in Friendship Relations, supra note, at 297-99.
179. See LAUB & SAMPSON, supra note.
180. Dana L. Haynie, Friendship Networks and Adolescent Delinquency: The Relative Nature of Peer Delinquency, 18 J. QUANTITATIVE CRIMINOLOGY 99, 117 (2002).
181. See Hagan, Social Embeddedness, supra note, at 465-75.
182. BASKIN & SOMMERS, supra note, at 130.
183. MARK WARR, COMPANIONS IN CRIME (2002)
184. Mark Warr, Life-Course Transitionsand Desistance from Crime, 36 CRIMINOLOGY 183 (1998)
185. See Giordano et al., Changes in Friendship Relations, supra note.
186. WARR, supra note, at 103-04; Warr, supra note, at 188-96.
187. Giordano et al., Changes in Friendship Relations, supra note, at 312-16.
188. Giordano et al., Changes in Friendship Relations, supra note. at 316-17.
189. One of the offenders studied by Giordano et al., Debbie, commented: "I wanted to settle down and stay out of trouble and they [her old friends] are still doing those things. . . I think they are still doing a lot of things that they still did back then. I don't want to do anyof that. Drinking, drugs, I just know where it got me." Id. at 304. A male offenderstated: "Nobody told me, well Andy. . . or influenced me to break into this, thisbuilding. But it was just wanting to fit in. Just with some of the. . . especially like Chester and Shawn. . . cause they were more, more wild." Id. at 308 (emphasisomitted).
190. The Mississippi Freedom Summer Project was initiated by the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee in 1964. The idea of the project was to recruit volunteers (most of them white, well-off college students at elite universities) to work for three months in Mississippi education and voter registration efforts. Workers for the projects lived in communal houses or in the homes of local black families for the three months they were in the state. The project was high-risk, because Mississippi was a tinderbox of racial tension at the time and volunteers could expect opposition from local law enforcement and no assistance or protection from federal authorities. The project was less than a half month old when three workers-James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner-were kidnapped by local whites, beaten to death, and buried in an earthen dam. One other Freedom Summer Project volunteer lost his life and countless others experienced beatings, arrests, and jailings.
191. DOUG MCADAM, FREEDOM SUMMER (1988)
192. Debra Friedman &Doug McAdam, Collective Identity and Activism: Networks, Choices and the Life of a Social Movement, in FRONTIERS IN SOCIAL MOVEMENT THEORY 156 (Aldon D. Morris & Carol McClurg Mueller eds., 1992)
193. Doug McAdam, Recruitment to High-Risk Activism: The Case of Freedom Summer, 92 AM. J. SOC. 64 (1986)
194. Doug McAdam &Ronnelle Paulsen, Specifying the Relationship Between Social Ties and Activism, 99 AM. J. SOC. 640 (1993).
195. McAdam & Paulsen, supra note, at 642-45, 654-58.
196. McAdam & Paulsen, supra note. at 659.
197. McAdam & Paulsen, supra note. at 653.
198. MCADAM, supra note, at 41.
199. MCADAM, supra note. at 51.
200. McAdam, Recruitment, supra note, at 69-70.
201. See WARR, supra note; Warr, supra note.
202. James S. Coleman, Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital, 94 AM. J. SOC.S97-105 (1988).
203. Loewenstein & Angner, supra note, at 352-53.
204. Thomas P. LeBel et al., The "Chicken and Egg" of Subjective and Social Factors in Desistance from Crime, 5 EUR. J. CRIMINOLOGY 131 (2008).
205. Laub & Sampson, supra note, at 51.
206. See LeBel et al., supra note, at 135-37
207. Greg Pogarsky, Deterrence and Individual Differences Among Convicted Offenders, 23 J. QUANTITATIVE CRIMINOLOGY 64-66 (2007).
208. See, e.g., D.A. ANDREWS & J. BONTA, THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CRIMINAL CONDUCT (3d ed. 2003)
209. JAMES MCGUIRE, HM INSPECTORATE OF PROBATION, COGNITIVE-BEHAVIOURAL APPROACHES: AN INTRODUCTION TO THEORY AND RESEARCH (2000), available at http://www.justice.gov.uk/inspectorates/hmi-probation/docs/cogbeh1-rps.pdf.
210. In this spirit, Paternoster is initiating a research project to examine the long-term changes in identity, social networks, and "life conditions" of a sample of ex-offender addicts released from a state prison in the early 1990s. The research will employ detailed interviews with these former (and some current) inmates in an attempt to document both the objective conditions of their lives after prison and their subjective understanding of those conditions, including any changes in identity.
211. Frederick, supra note.
212. For an exhaustive review, see Shane Frederick, George Loewenstein, & Ted O'Donoghue, Time Discounting and Time Preference: A Critical Review, 40 J. ECON. LITERATURE 351 (2002)
213. See, e.g., Daniel S. Nagin & Greg Pogarsky, Integrating Celerity, Impulsivity and Extralegal Sanction Threats into a Model of General Deterrence: Theory and Evidence, 39 CRIMINOLOGY 865 (2001).
214. See Daniel S. Nagin, Moving Choice to Center Stage in Criminological Research and Theory: The American Society of Criminology 2006 Sutherland Address, 45 CRIMINOLOGY 259 (2007).
215. See, e.g., Read & Read, supra note.
216. David McDowall et al., No. 07-021, Interrupted Time Series Analysis (1980).
217. David McDowall &Colin Loftin, Are U.S. Crime Rates Historically Contingent?, 42 J. RES. CRIME & DELINQ. 359 (2005)
218. Robert M. O'Brien, Theory, Operationalization, Identification and the Interpretation of Different Differences in Time Series Models, 17 J. QUANTITATIVE CRIMINOLOGY 359 (2001)
219. William Spelman, Specifying the Relationship Between Crime and Prisons, 24 J. QUANTITATIVE CRIMINOLOGY 149 (2008)
220. The following is the simplest possible dynamic model. It can be generalized by including more lags. However, the basic concepts apply.
221. Sampson & Laub, supra note, at 36-60.
222. Blokland et al., supra note.
223. LAUB & SAMPSON, supra note.
224. MCCLEARY & HAY, supra note.
225. D. Wayne Osgood, Making Sense of Crime and the Life Course, 602 ANNALS AM. ACAD. POL. & SOC. SCI. 196 (2005)
226. FARRINGTON ET AL., supra note. We thank David Farrington for his generosity in letting us use these data.
227. The difference is that we created the trajectory for each individual, and we did not fit a polynomial function form; instead we used a smoothing function in STATA that, sequentially, did median smoothers of four, two, five, and three spans (number of observations around a given Y) followed by a Hanning linear smoother, and did each sequence twice. The results reported below do not appear to be overly sensitive to the type of smoother we used (we get largely similar results when we did a simple three-period moving average to smooth the time series). We are however open to discussions about the best way to proceed. In this paper we are simply trying to briefly present a concrete example of a time series analysis with individual-level data.
228. Osgood, supra note.
229. We did not use the augmented Dickey-Fuller test, which uses lags to control for serial correlated errors. The problem here is that lags force the researcher to discard observations at the beginning of the time series. A lag of four means that we will discard the observations from ages ten to thirteen. The tests for optimal lags routinely found optimal lags of eight or nine, which means that the results were "best" when we start at seventeen or eighteen-after the hump of adolescence. This makes little sense in this context, given our interest in explaining the full desistance trajectory. However, it is also clear to us that individual time series of individual offending propensity will be serially correlated. As an alternative, we also used the Phillips Perron test, using Newey-West standard errors to correct for serial correlation (which does not use the lagged differences), and found the same answer. We failed to reject the null hypothesis of a unit root in all cases.
230. Denis Kwiatkowski et al., Testing the Null Hypothesis of Stationarity Against the Alternative of a Unit Root, 54 J. ECONOMETRICS 159 (1992)
231. For an accessible presentation of random walks, see MCCLEARY & HAY, supra note. For a more detailed but still intuitive presentation, see WILLIAM FELLER, 2 AN INTRODUCTION TO PROBABILITY THEORY AND ITS APPLICATIONS (1971). For examples of random walks in crime time series, see David F. Greenberg, Time Series Analysis of Crime Rates, 17 J. QUANTITATIVE CRIMINOLOGY 291 (2001); David McDowall, Tests of Nonlinear Dynamics in U.S. Homicide Time Series, and Their Implications, 40 CRIMINOLOGY 711 (2002); Spellman, supra note.
232. LAUB & SAMPSON, supra note, at 34.
233. Osgood, supra note.
234. Glen H. Elder, Jr., The Life Course as Developmental Theory, 69 CHILD DEV. 1 (1998).
235. MCCLEARY & HAY, supra note.
236. McDowall & Loftin, supra note.
237. McDowall & Loftin, supra note. at 362-63
238. Christopher Uggen, Work as a Turning Point in the Life Course of Criminals: A Duration Model of Age, Employment, and Recidivism, 65 AM. SOC. REV. 529 (2000)
239. Terence P. Thornberry, Toward an Interactional Theory of Delinquency, 25 CRIMINOLOGY 863 (1986)
240. Terrie E. Moffitt, Adolescence-Limited and Life-Course-Persistent Antisocial Behavior: A Developmental Taxonomy, 100 PSYCHOL. REV. 674 (1993).
241. Daniel S. Nagin &Raymond Paternoster, Personal Capital and Social Control: The Deterrence Implications of a Theory of Individual Differences in Offending, 32 CRIMINOLOGY 581 (1994).
242. Bradley R. E. Wright et al., Does the Perceived Risk of Punishment Deter Criminally-Prone Individuals? Rational Choice, Self-Control, and Crime, 41 J. RES. CRIME & DELINQ. 180 (2004)
243. Bradley R. Entner Wright et al., The Effects of Social Ties on Crime Vary by Criminal Propensity: A Life-Course Model of Interdependence, 39 CRIMINOLOGY 321 (2001)
244. Carter Hay &Walter Forrest, Self-Control Theory and the Concept of Opportunity: Making the Case for a More Systematic Union, 46 CRIMINOLOGY 1039 (2008)
245. Graham C. Ousey, & Pamela Wilcox, Interactions Between Antisocial Propensity and Life-Course Varying Correlates of Delinquent Behavior: Differences by Method of Estimation and Implications for Theory, 45 CRIMINOLOGY 313 (2007)
246. Pogarsky, supra note. Wright et al. finds, in contrast to Nagin and Paternoster's prediction, that those with the most self-control are the least responsive to structural events. Another study, described in Elaine Eggleston Doherty, Self-Control, Social Bonds, and Desistance: A Test of Life-Course Interdependence, 44 CRIMINOLOGY 807 (2006), found no evidence of an interaction between social bonds and social control. The latter result could be explained by Doherty's use of a sample of serious juvenile delinquents rather than a more heterogeneous general population sample.
247. Hay & Forrest, supra note.
248. MARUNA, supra note; Farrall, supra note; Farrall & Maruna, supra note; Giordano et al., Gender, Crime, and Desistance, supra note; Maruna, supra note; Maruna & Roy, supra note.
249. Donald W. K. Andrews, Tests for Parameter Instability and Structural Change with Unknown Change Point, 61 ECONOMETRICA 821 (1993)
250. Bruce E. Hansen, The New Economics of Structural Change: Dating Breaks in U.S. Labor Productivity, 15 J. ECON. PERSPECTIVES 117 (2001)
251. For a criminological example of a test for structural breaks, see McDowall & Loftin, supra note.
252. Gregory C. Chow, Tests of Equality Between Sets of Coefficients in Two Linear Regressions, 28 ECONOMETRICA 591 (1960).
253. Richard E. Quandt, Tests of the Hypothesis that a Linear Regression Obeys Two Separate Regimes, 55 J. AM. STAT. ASS'N 324-329 (1960)
254. Andrews, supra note.
255. See supra note and accompanying text.
256. LAUB & SAMPSON, supra note; Giordano et al., Gender, Crime, and Desistance, supra note; Giordano et al., Emotions and Crime, supra note; Robert J. Sampson et al., Assessing Sampson and Laub's Life-Course Theory of Crime, in TAKING STOCK: THE STATUS OF CRIMINOLOGICAL THEORY 313 (Francis T. Cullen, John Paul Wright & Kristie R. Blevins eds., 2006); Robert J. Sampson & John H. Laub, A General Age-Graded Theory of Crime: Lessons Learned and the Future of Life-Course Criminology, in INTEGRATED DEVELOPMENTAL AND LIFE COURSE THEORIES OF OFFENDING 165 (David P. Farrington ed., 2005) [hereinafter Sampson & Laub, General Age-Graded Theory]; Robert J. Sampson & John H. Laub, A Life-Course View of the Development of Crime, 602 ANNALS AM. ACAD. POL. & SOC. SCI. 12 (2005) [hereinafter Sampson & Laub, Life-Course View]; Robert J. Sampson & John H. Laub, When Prediction Fails: From Crime-Prone Boys to Heterogeneity in Adulthood, 602 ANNALS AM. ACAD. POL. & SOC. SCI. 73 (2005) [hereinafter Sampson & Laub, When Prediction Fails]. Our stance on the desistance process contrasts with emerging theories of desistance that emphasize cognitive transformations or identity shifts as necessary for desistance to occur. We believe that most offenders desist in response to structural turning points that serve as the catalyst for long-term behavioral change. The image of "desistance by default" best fits the desistance process we found in our data. Desistance for our subjects was not necessarily a conscious or deliberate process, but rather the consequence of what Howard Becker calls side bets. Many men made a commitment to go straight without even realizing it. Our main point is that many of the desisters did not seek to make good-they simply desisted with little if any cognitive reflection on the matter.
257. Stephen Farrall & Benjamin Bowling, Structuration, Human Development and Desistance from Crime, 39 BRIT. J. CRIMINOLOGY 253 (1999).
258. LAUB & SAMPSON, supra note, at 145-49.
259. LAUB & SAMPSON, supra note. at 278-79.
260. LAUB & SAMPSON, supra note. (emphasis added).
261. LAUB & SAMPSON, supra note. (emphasis added). at 148-49, 278-79
262. Id. at 149 (emphasis added) (quoting Howard S. Becker, Personal Change in Adult Life, 27 SOCIOMETRY 40, 52-53 (1964)).
263. We must admit that Laub and Sampson have not been completely consistent on this point. Elsewhere in their book and other writings, they seem to imply that human agency does play an important role in their theory: "For a number of our formerly delinquent men, personal agency looms large in the processes of persistence and desistance from crime." LAUB & SAMPSON, supra note, at 280. Perhaps the "number" is a small number compared with those who desisted without ever realizing it? Ultimately we are convinced that a theory of desistance cannot give an "important role" or "prominence" to both human agency and desistance by default. In addition, their view that structural factors can coerce humans to behave in appropriate ways is inconsistent with any identity theory of desistance such as ours, or even one based on the kinds of cognitive transformations described by Giordano et al., Gender, Crime, and Desistance, supra note.
264. GOTTFREDSON & HIRSCHI, supra note, at 85-120.
265. LAUB & SAMPSON, supra note; Sampson & Laub, General Age-Graded Theory, supra note; Sampson & Laub, Life-Course View, supra note; Sampson & Laub, When Prediction Fails, supra note; Sampson et al., supra note.
266. LAUB & SAMPSON, supra note, at 148-49, 278-79; Sampson et al., supra note, at 324.
267. Sampson & Laub, When Prediction Fails, supra note, at 74.
268. See Sampson & Laub, Life-Course View, supra note; Robert J. Sampson et al., Does Marriage Reduce Crime? A Counter-Factual Approach to Within-Individual Causal Effects, 44 CRIMINOLOGY 465 (2006). With respect to the former, Sampson and Laub argue, "[W]e believe that marriage has an effect on both propensity and events or opportunities to offend." Sampson & Laub, Life-Course View, supra note, at 74. While they are clear with respect to how marriage changes opportunity, they are not with respect to how it changes propensity, except that it does not change a person's identity. With respect to the latter, they have written that [i]t follows from this theoretical conceptualization that the mechanisms associated with marriage are not a constant once set in motion and thus vary through time. The spousal monitoring of drinking patterns, for example, is predicted to vary over time depending on the state of whether one is in or out of a marital relationship. In dynamic terms, marriage is thus not seen as a single turning point but as part of a potential causal dynamic over the life course. Sampson & Laub, When Prediction Fails, supra note, at 34.
269. Sampson & Laub, Life-Course View, supra note, at 34; see also Blokland & Nieuwbeerta, supra note.
270. Sampson et al., supra note, at 492-94.
271. There is an implication in their work that by human agency Sampson and Laub mean the capacity to make choices. They note that "[t]he modified theory refers to agentic moves within structural context as "situated choice.'" Sampson et al., supra note, at 323. They also state that "human agency is intentional action that may or may not be accompanied by an identity change." Id. at 326. This would seem to push their notion of human agency close to a rational choice view, but they have apparently rejected this possibility: "In ongoing work, we make what we believe is a crucial distinction between human agency and rational choice. In our view, the rational choice perspective views agency as a static entity representing the stable part of the person as well as within-individual variation over time that is largely driven by age. What is lacking in rational choice is the recognition that "we construct our preferences. We choose preferences and actions jointly, in part, to discover-or construct-new preferences that are currently unknown.'" Sampson & Laub, Life-Course View, supra note, at 38 (internal citations omitted) (citing James G. March, Bounded Rationality, Ambiguity, and the Engineering of Choice, 9 BELL J. ECON. 587, 596 (1978)).
272. Giordano et al., Gender, Crime, and Desistance, supra note, at 992-93.
273. Giordano et al., Gender, Crime, and Desistance, supra note. at 1000-01
274. Giordano et al., Gender, Crime, and Desistance, supra note. at 1002-03.
275. Giordano et al., Gender, Crime, and Desistance, supra note. at 1055
276. Giordano et al., Gender, Crime, and Desistance, supra note. at 1000-04
277. Giordano et al., Gender, Crime, and Desistance, supra note. at 1000-03
278. Giordano et al., Gender, Crime, and Desistance, supra note. at 991-92
279. Giordano et al., Gender, Crime, and Desistance, supra note. at 992-93
280. Giordano et al., Gender, Crime, and Desistance, supra note. at 1003
281. Giordano et al., Gender, Crime, and Desistance, supra note. at 1033-34.
282. Giordano et al., Gender, Crime, and Desistance, supra note. at 1026-27.
283. Giordano et al., Emotions and Crime, supra note.
284. E.g., MARUNA, supra note; SHOVER, supra note; WARR, supra note; Farrall, supra note; Giordano et al., When Prediction Fails, supra note.
285. LAUB & SAMPSON, supra note.
286. Giordano et al., Gender, Crime, and Desistance, supra note.
287. See BAUMEISTER, supra note and accompanying text.
288. Laub and Sampson argued that "we believe that most offenders desist in response to structurally induced turning points that serve as the catalyst for sustaining long-term behavioral change." LAUB & SAMPSON, supra note, at 149. In the very next sentence, they approvingly quote Howard Becker that [a] structural explanation of personal change has implications for attempts to deliberately mold human behavior. In particular, it suggests that we need not try to develop deep and lasting interests, be they values or personality traits, in order to produce the behavior we want. It is enough to create situations which will coerce people into behaving as we want them to and then to create the conditions under which other rewards will become linked to continuing this behavior. Id. (emphasis added) (quoting Becker, supra note, at 53).
289. We sincerely thank one of the anonymous reviewers for reminding us of this very important fact.