Parenthood, Maturation, and Desistance: Examining Parenthood Transition Effects on Maturation Domains and Subsequent Reoffending Abstract Purpose We employ Rocque's (Criminology & Criminal Justice, 15(3), 340–360, 2015) integrated maturation theory of desistance to examine the impact of parenthood on four maturation domains and on desistance from self-reported offending among a sample of serious adolescent offenders. Methods Using a subsample from the Pathways to Desistance panel (N = 1221), we employ Bayesian mixed-effect growth curve models to examine whether transition to parenthood shocks growth to maturation domains, whether growth in maturation domains is associated with self-reported offending, and whether any effects differ between males and females. Results The analysis suggests that, particularly for males, parenthood does have some effect on the growth of certain maturation domains, and that maturation domains are variably associated with offending for both males and females, but that parenthood does not affect offending through its impact on maturation. Conclusions The relationship between parenthood and desistance from offending remains unclear. Parenthood appears to affect maturation, and maturation appears to affect offending, but the connection between these concepts needs further research. Concerning integrated maturation theory and similar perspectives, future research should reassess age-graded, “role transition” theories of desistance considering evolving meanings of adulthood.

Signalling Desistance? Crime Attitudes, Perceptions of Punishment, and Exposure to Criminogenic Models Abstract Purpose To examine individual perceptions of the consequences of crime, the role of criminogenic models, and whether rational choice and criminal social capital are informative of desistance during emerging adulthood. Methods Data from the Incarcerated Serious and Violent Young Offender Study were used to examine the relationship between different aspects of rational choice theories of desistance, criminogenic environment, and offending trajectories measured between ages 12 and 30, calculated using semi-parametric group-based modeling. Offending trajectories were then modeled using multinomial logistic regression. Results Trajectory analyses identified three desistance trajectories and three non-desistance trajectories. The strongest predictors of desistance trajectories included variables that relate to rational choices that considered the consequences of crime. Conclusions Rational choice and life course perspectives on desistance as complementary, with sources of informal social control operating in a manner that, along with other factors, helps structure an individual’s consideration of, and importance placed on, the consequences of crime.

Rethinking Turning Points: Trajectories of Parenthood and Desistance Abstract Purpose While much research has examined the role of parenthood in desistance, it has largely treated parenthood as a binary condition. This article examines the interaction between trajectories of parenthood and trajectories of desistance in order to understand how these interact over time. Methods This article is based on life story interviews with 29 men and women in Scotland who had experienced repeated short-term imprisonment and mentioned children as significant in their lives, ten of whom were interviewed again 2 years later. Results While becoming pregnant was a (very) positive turning point for many of the women, trauma surrounding parenthood through pregnancy loss, lack of conception and losing the parental role had a clear negative effect on trajectories of desistance.Men had similar experiences, although pregnancy was only a turning point for them if they felt their partner was not fulfilling their role as mother-to-be. Conclusion A more nuance understanding of the lives of people processed by the criminal justice system is needed, looking beyond their interactions with the criminal justice system and not only in relation to parenthood but also with regard to other frequently cited 'turning points' such as work and relationships.

Being Willing but Not Able: Echoes of Intimate Partner Violence as a Hindrance in Women’s Desistance from Crime Abstract Purpose This article emphasizes the complexity of desistance processes by exploring how echoes of violent victimization from intimate partners work as a hindrance or barrier to desistance. Drawing on interviews with women who are striving to desist, this article seeks to elucidate how past experiences of excessive and recurring violent victimization affect the life course, with a focus on their restrictions on the women’s desistance processes. Methods This paper is built upon repeated qualitative interviews with ten women in the early stages of their desistance processes. They were all interviewed repeatedly on a 6-monthly basis for 2 years. Echoes of violent victimization as a hindrance to desistance emerged as a theme during the interviews and are explored further via a thematic analysis. Results Echoes of violent victimization from intimate partners restrict the women’s social lives, complicating an already fragile (re)connection to conventional society. Additionally, many of the women are restricted by post-traumatic stress disorders directly related to their violent victimization, which impedes their agency and limits their abilities to act towards desistance. Conclusions Recurring violent victimization has severe implications for the women’s desistance processes. Both social and health-related consequences of this violence restrict the women’s ability to act towards desistance from crime and expose them to painful experiences of isolation, goal failure, and hopelessness. These conclusions are important contributions to the understanding of the complexity of desistance processes.

“About Face” for Delinquent Youth: Military Service as a Turning Point Across the Life Course Abstract Purpose The current study explores how military service can influence later criminal offending, as informed by the age-graded theory of informal social control. Specifically, the current study is testing whether military service in adulthood acts as a turning point for delinquent youths. We build off previous literature by implementing a research design that addresses important gaps in this literature, such as a more recent military population and comparing self-reported criminal offending to police contacts. Both include overall crime measures and specific crime categories. This study also examines differences in self-reported offending and arrests for different the types of service within the military. Methods The current study uses a nationally representative sample of delinquent youths from the Add Health. We employ propensity score matching and logistic regression to test the effects of military service on self-reported criminal offending and arrests. Results Our results suggest that military service reduces future overall self-reported criminal offending for delinquent youths. However, the only specific category of crime influenced is drug arrests. Additionally, we find that those in the military reserves are substantially more likely to engage in drug crime than those with active duty service. Conclusions The findings of the current study not only address many gaps in the current literature but also postulate a reason for the mixed findings in the literature. In addition, the results indicate that the criminal justice system may treat military servicemen and servicewomen differently than those with no military service on minor forms of crime. Limitations and policy implications are also discussed.

Desistance and Disabled Masculine Identity: Exploring the Role of Serious Violent Victimization in the Desistance Process Abstract Purpose This manuscript proposes a theoretical model that will explain how violently acquired impairments (VAI) can serve as a turning point in the life-course of active male offenders or lead to further entrenchment in criminal lifestyles. Here, VAI refers to any form of physical impairment acquired as a result of interpersonal violence that limits a person’s mobility or ability to perform basic physical activities. Methods By examining the intersections among gender, disability, and life-course criminology, the proposed model will explain how men reconstruct their disabled masculine identity following VAI. Results In doing so, I argue that these ‘new’ identities following VAI can facilitate persistence in offending or desistance from crime. Conclusions This theoretical model will contribute to the literature by describing the many ways in which men perform masculinity and providing a more nuanced discussion of how serious violent victimization can alter the life-course of male offenders.

Positive Expected Selves and Desistance among Serious Adolescent Offenders Abstract Purpose Despite a recent surge of interest in the role that self-identity plays in the process of desistance from crime, prior research has been mostly qualitative and conducted with small samples of adult offenders. In addition, while what people expect to become in the future can also function as motivational and sustaining forces toward prosocial behavioral outcomes, empirical tests of identity-based theories of criminal desistance have focused on the measures of current self-identity. We intend to address both gaps to expand the scope of desistance literature. Methods Drawing on 11-wave panel data of serious adolescent offenders, a modified version of negative binomial random-effects models is applied to estimate the within-individual effects of expectation of positive future selves on self-reported offending and official record of arrest. Results We found that a shift in a youth’s expectation of positive self-identity in the future is significantly related to a downward trend in both offending and arrest outcomes. This finding holds even after controlling for unobserved time-stable sources of heterogeneity and other important time-varying sources of potential confounders. Conclusions This study not only explores one of the understudied topics in the desistance literature but also provides evidence-based knowledge on which characteristics need to be addressed to initiate and maintain prosocial life styles among serious adolescent offenders.

“It’s Not About Me No More”: Fatherhood and Mechanisms of Desistance Among At-Risk Men Abstract Purpose Work and marriage seem out of reach for many at-risk young men, but fatherhood is relatively common. The growing body of quantitative research on parenthood and desistance from crime is mixed, yet the changes associated with the transition to fatherhood align with the mechanisms implied by theories of desistance. To understand whether and how fatherhood relates to desistance and persistence in crime, I examine how fatherhood shapes cognitive shifts and routine activities among persisting and desisting men in early adulthood. Methods I analyze in-depth interviews with a subsample of 17 desisting and persisting fathers from the qualitative component of the Pathways to Desistance Study. Results The meanings and structures of fatherhood experiences were sensitive to local life circumstances, yet distinct patterns emerged. Desisting fathers experienced changes in thinking, including a sense of maturity and an increase in consideration for others. Shifts often emerged from parenting experiences after the birth of a child. Desisting fathers also described time with children in terms of structured childcare activities. Persisting fathers viewed themselves as failing to fulfill role obligations and as ignoring parenthood hook for change. Persisting fathers described time with children as “babysitting” and as oriented around leisure activities. Conclusions These findings provide insight into the lived experience of fatherhood among at-risk men. It highlights the intersection of situational and cognitive mechanisms implicated in the desistance process and supports contemporary theories of desistance and persistence.

Precocious and Problematic? The Consequences of Youth Violent Victimization for Adolescent Sexual Behavior Abstract Purpose Violent victimization is concentrated in adolescence and is disruptive to both the timing and sequencing of key life course transitions that occur during this developmental stage. Drawing on recent work establishing the interpersonal consequences of youth victimization, we examined the effect of violent victimization on adolescents’ timing of sexual debut and involvement in additional sexual risk behaviors (multiple sexual partnering and inconsistent contraceptive use). Methods This study relied on secondary data analysis of 10,070 youth from four waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). To predict sexual debut and subsequent sexual risk-taking, analyses were limited to youth not yet sexually active at their wave I interview. Results Findings from Cox proportional hazards models, negative binomial regression, and repeated measures ordinal logistic regression showed that adolescent victims of violence initiated sex sooner than non-victims and accumulated more sexual partners, but patterns varied by age at victimization. Youth victimized in late adolescence displayed an accelerated trajectory of sexual activity while youth victimized in early adolescence were less likely to debut or engage in other sexual risk behaviors (although younger victims were more likely to engage in other deviant activities). Conclusion Sexual activity is a normative part of adolescent development, yet this study finds that violent victimization may disrupt the timing of this life course task, exacerbating deviant risk-taking and undermining youths’ subsequent well-being. This study also highlights the importance of life course criminology’s attention to timing in lives, given that the consequences of victimization varied by the age when it occurred.

Explaining Crime and Criminal Careers: the DEA Model of Situational Action Theory Abstract Purpose The purpose of this paper is to outline Situational Action Theory (SAT) and its Developmental Ecological Action Model (DEA model) as applied to the explanation of criminal careers. The DEA model of SAT was first presented by Wikström in 2005, [34]), and subsequently refined in Wikström and Treiber in 2018, [43]), and is further elaborated in this paper. Methods This paper provides a theoretical analysis of the role of crime causation in the explanation of criminal careers and pathways in crime. The central argument is that if we want to explain stability and change in people’s crime involvement we first have to understand what factors and processes move people to commit acts of crime. Only then can we adequately assess what factors and processes are involved in the explanation of criminal careers and people’s differential pathways (trajectories) in crime. Results The DEA model of SAT address some of the main limitations of current dominant explanatory approaches in Developmental and Life-Course (DLC) Criminology [39], and champions a general, dynamic and mechanism-based account of the causes of crime [38], and the drivers of criminal careers [47]. It integrates and extends key insights from two great but poorly amalgamated traditions in the study of crime and its causes: the individual/developmental and ecological/environmental traditions. It provides a new approach to the study and explanation of crime and criminal careers with implications for how we approach the problem of crime prevention policy and practise.