'Foreground' via 'Background'? Socialisation Interaction Theory - Furthering the Desistance Trajectories Debate

• In Event: Poster Session

Abstract

Desistance to crime, the idea that people cease committing crime, is not well understood. Current debates address critical conceptual components, temporal and methodological considerations. Desistance is increasingly discussed as a process, comprising emergence, development and cessation rather than a specific event. Focus is often divisive either on structure, biopsychosocial factors, versus agency in criminal action. Both are concerned with understanding and predicting criminality, the former describes “longitudinal socialization processes” leading to criminal disposition whilst the latter is more concerned with action around the criminal event. The interaction between the two approaches is increasingly of interest. In this paper a dual approach is taken, designed at pinpointing the current debate whilst detecting different conceptualisations based on data from the British Cohort study 1970 (BCS70). This paper identifies patterns of criminal behaviour and key determinants of the different trajectories, based on early psychosocial adjustment (family socialisation) and later legal attitudes (legal socialisation), measured at 5, 10 and 16. For 4,725 cohort members, complete self reported (at 16, 30 and 34) criminal justice convictions, divide into four categories: none (n. 3,660), desistance (n. 354), later onset (278) and persistence (n. 433). Elucidation provides more understanding of socialisations influence on criminal behaviour.

Author

• Annabel Jean Charlotte Mullin, IOE, University of London