Decisions in Context: Using Life Course and Narrative Analysis to Analyze Offender and Officer Actions

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract

Interested in how criminal behavior persists, changes, or desists over time, life course criminologists consider the trajectories of justice-involved individuals. This panel considers three populations – juvenile probationers, female substance abusers, and probation officers – and uses life course data to explore how decisions are made in context. For juvenile probationers, elements of the life course under supervision such as rewards and sanctions affect future offending and likelihood of incurring violations or detention sentences. The past experiences of victimized women similarly influence their paths into and out of substance abuse. Finally, probation officers’ employment histories affect their attitudes toward punishment and delivery of supervision services. Variant methods of life course mapping and/or narrative analysis conducted on each population reveal factors that influence the future behavior of each justice actor.

Sub Unit

• Area III: Perspectives on Crime and Criminal Behavior / 6: Developmental and Life Course Perspectives

Individual Presentations

• Probation Pathways: Measuring the Supervision Life Course of Juvenile Probationers - Kimberly S. Meyer, George Mason University

• Narrative criminology and ‘decisions in context’: Women’s violent victimization and substance use over the life course - Rebecca J. Stone, University of Massachusetts Lowell; Kellie Wallace, University of Massachusetts Lowell

• Mapping the Path: The Influence of Historic Life Events on Community Corrections Staff and their Philosophy of Supervision - Kimberly R. Kras, University of Massachusetts Lowell; Shannon Magnuson, George Mason University; Faye S. Taxman, George Mason University

Chair

• Kimberly S. Meyer, George Mason University